


The Institute

by Hisa_Ai



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bonding, Child Prodigy, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Multi, Music, Musicians, Prodigy, Romance, School, adjustment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:05:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisa_Ai/pseuds/Hisa_Ai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Child prodigy Merlin is left with old scars brought on by too much pressure and too many watchful eyes on him for most of his life. Years after his retirement, sending him off to a special school for the musically gifted <em>seems</em> like a good idea to everyone but him. And when he meets Arthur Pendragon... Well, he's just not sure he trusts his parents' judgement any more.</p><p>"Suddenly, as though overnight, music became more of a prison cell than an escape. It was the furthest from bliss, from happiness and enjoyment, that he had felt in his entire life."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prodigy

**Author's Note:**

> I was transposing some music the other week, and I was thinking about some of the Merlin fics I've read where Merlin or Arthur or both of them are musicians and one thing led to another and this little baby came into being. It's just a nice little campy, modern day fic about our favorite medieval characters going to a special school for the musically gifted, sprinkled with plenty of teenage/young adult angst and drama through-out.
> 
> Now, seeing as how I live in the US, where the public school system is a joke, and know very little about the UK school system, I've gone ahead and made up my own rules for this nice school they'll be attending. Because I can.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Merlin was just a few months shy of his nineteenth birthday, his parents, Hunith and Balinor, sat him down for a _talk._

* * *

 

*

  
Merlin had been known as a child prodigy, playing the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and many others well before the age five. He started composing his own music by the time he was seven. He played to sold-out concerts, traveled all over the world, played with the best classical musicians of his time, had been written about in the best music magazines, been on many television shows, interviewed by the greatest there was—he was a household name all over the world by the time he was twelve.

  
Swept up in everything, he hadn't really been  _sure_ how he felt about the life he had seemingly been thrust into. He enjoyed playing, enjoyed the ivories under his fingers, enjoyed getting lost in the music, enjoyed being swept up in the melodies that became home to him in a world where he never had a firm place to plant his feet for too long at a time, sure, but he had never liked the limelight much. He never got used to all those eyes on him, everyone watching him, so interested in what he was doing and what he had to say about this or that at any given time. He never quite got used to his face popping up in the most unusual of places. He was a  _classical_  musician, why everyone in the world was so interested in him was always beyond him.

  
His parents meant no harm in urging him into this life, he knew, and they never made him do anything he didn't want to—they always asked how he felt about playing that concert hall or that celebration, this award show or for that president, this country or that one—but he could hardly say no to them; he knew they just wanted the best for him, and they thought: what better way to give it to him than to use his talents to his advantage?

  
He could hardly hold something like that against them.

  
By the time he was sixteen, however, he felt…  _worn out_. He was under so much pressure from his parents, his peers, the world, really, that he could hardly enjoy playing anymore; rather than reveling in the familiar curve of his fingers as he sat down to play, getting lost in the music, the notes flowing from him, scratched down on music staffs when he went to compose, he dreaded it, felt a pressure on his chest when he sat down to play, felt anxiety prick at his chest, his head start to pound, his fingers suddenly heavy and uncooperative, the music no longer flowing when he sat with his pencil and pad of blank sheet music.

  
Suddenly, as though overnight, music became more of a prison cell than an escape. It was the furthest from bliss, from happiness and enjoyment, that he had felt in his entire life.

  
He couldn't take any of what he was going through to his parents, however, he didn't want them to blame themselves, didn't want them to think they'd done something wrong in encouraging him in such a way. It wasn't their fault, he often told himself as he fought through the mental block, exhausting himself physically as he fought his heavy, stiff fingers, and mentally as he pushed himself more and more each day as the burden just became heavier and harder to bear. If anything, it was  _his_  fault; music was  _his_  thing, this was  _his_ life,  _his_  career, and becoming so fucked up... Well, somehow it must have been his own damn fault.

  
And so he pushed on, bringing himself to the brink of whatever sanity remained, losing himself a little more each and every day. If his parents noticed anything—if anyone noticed anything—like the way he tensed up, his posture so much different than it used to be, dark bags under his eyes from the sleep he lost in trying to go back to the way he had been  _before_ , they said nothing, didn't even hint at it.

  
So for seven months, he continued to push himself, getting through the days and nights one at a time—if even that—through the concerts and appearances day by day by moment. For seven months, he barely existed, everything happening with so much effort on his part that he couldn't even tell who he was most days.

  
For seven months, he was convinced that he was going to die from exhaustion in front of his piano any day now.

  
Until one day, when he flubbed a concert, forgot the notes halfway through—he had never played with sheet music in front of him; it was part of the appeal of seeing him play live—and had to improvise for fifteen minutes before ending what everyone thought was a carefully thought-out and planned movement that had them all on their feet…

  
Suddenly, as he faced the applause and took his bow with a perfectly fake and pleasant sort of humble smile on his face, he was  _awakened_ for the first time in those long seven months. He saw everything with clarity, saw that this was not a very good situation for him to be in, saw that he needed to put a stop to this before he actually killed himself—either on purpose or accidentally. As soon as he was off stage, he found his parents and told them that he was  _done_. Done with the concerts, done with the appearances, done with the piano—he was just...  _done._

  
At first, no one quite believed him. They thought he simply wanted a short break to maybe date a few girls or mend his broken heart—he  _had_  just recently been dumped, but that had  _nothing_  to do with his decision, he assured them—or make some new friends or what have you.

  
No one thought Merlin Emrys, arguably the world's greatest pianist at the tender age of 16, was really  _quitting_. None of the news outlets that picked it up believed it, no one that talked about it believed it, no one in the world believed that he was genuinely quitting—" _Retiring_ ," he would always correct during the handful of public appearances he needed to make to announce such a thing—and throwing away his career like that. No one.

  
After a month of him not even looking in the direction of his piano, his parents realized that he might have been serious, that maybe this  _wasn't_  just some passing teenage rebellion of sorts.

  
After three months of not touching the piano, not looking towards the piano, not talking about the piano, or anything of the such, his retirement was confirmed to the world by his parents, and Merlin didn't know what they told the press about his sudden departure from the music world—he himself had always evaded the question, as no one else needed to know about what he'd gone through simply for the sake of his music—but he didn't much  _care_ ; he felt lighter now that he didn't have so much weighing on him, now that he wasn't expected to play so much, compose something new every month.

  
Now that the world quit watching him so much—they would never really  _quit_ , he realized, not when it came to someone like him, but at the very least the interest died down enough that he could scan a newspaper without seeing his name splashed through-out it—he felt like he could be himself, whoever that might be. For the first time since he was a child, he felt as though he could breathe properly again.

  
And it was an amazing sort of feeling. While it lasted.

  
He shortly realized that, just because he moreorless quit the piano—he hadn't touched it since that night he messed up at his concert and had his moment of revelation and clarity—didn't mean he could give up music entirely. He'd been immersed in it his entire life, after all, it was foolish of him to think he could just  _quit_  entirely. He likened his predicament to that of a drug addict and what quitting cold-turkey could do to a person—because that's what he was, really, just another addict trying to give up what would eventually be the death of him.

  
Granted, quitting— _retiring—_ was probably the best thing there was for him in such a situation, but still, not a month after his official retirement, when his parents had confirmed his plans, he felt as though he would go  _insane_  if he didn't get some music back in his life. If he didn't feel the music flowing through him, didn't feel the vibrations of some instrument or another flow through him soon, he was sure he would explode. It was the perfect sort of irony: he quit music because it became too much to bear and he honestly feared as though it would be the death of him some days, but he  _needed_  music in his life because he honestly feared as though not having any in his life would be the death of him.

  
He could never really win, could he?

  
He thought education of some sort might be a decent sort of distraction, but, having been homeschooled his whole life and having finished up his required education long before he retired, he didn't see it as a very  _plausible_  distraction. His parent suggested, more than once, that he attend a college of some sort, but the prospect had never appealed to him much.

  
Without anything else to occupy his time, he decided to take up learning another instrument. He needed more music in his life, needed it to feel  _whole_  and  _right_  again, but... it needed to be something other than the piano—anything  _but_  the piano. Perhaps he would dedicate more time to studying music notation and theory while he was at it, as he had been more concerned with  _playing_ , with knowing the notes as they were to be played and not where they were on the staff if they weren't his own notes. And even then, he usually just memorized the notes, the chords, as opposed to checking against the music every time he played.

  
Yes, perhaps this was a fine opportunity to get a better grasp of his craft while slowly trying to heal himself of the trauma he'd gone through for those seven long months.

  
From the time he was sixteen to the time he was eighteen, he busied himself with learning to play the flute, the violin, the cello, the clarinet, the guitar, even, when he became disillusioned with classic music for a few months. He studied music theory, learned where every note belonged on the music staff, what they were to sound like, what his posture should be like, what it took to master the instrument he happened to be playing at that time.

  
For two years, he mastered new sounds and tones, and he felt himself healing, felt a mental sort of scar forming around the memories of those seven long months.

  
Of course, the psychiatrist his parents had him seeing to adjust to his new life probably didn't hurt his progress any, but when he said things like, "Merlin, my boy, I know you feel as though you've over-come this, but, to be perfectly honest, this  _was_  a sort of trauma, you  _have_  been through a lot. I know it feels as though two years is plenty of time to over-come something like this, but, from what you've told me, you still have a ways to go. This experience has left you damaged and scarred in ways that you can't seem to comprehend. You were contemplating suicide, that's not just something you walk away from. Even after all this time, you still shy away from the truth of it all and hide from the real implications of what you went through. You still have a lot of sorting out to do," Merlin wondered why he bothered wasting valuable time that could be better spent practicing his music sitting in an uncomfortable leather chair, talking about things he would rather deal with with an instrument in his hands.

  
During those two years of his retirement, while he played other instruments and explored different sounds, he played others' music from old books and sheet music given to him by fellow musicians who knew of his plight, not daring to compose his own for his instrument of choice until he was  _sure_  he was at an advanced level. But then—oh  _then_ —was when he  _really_  felt at home in everything. Playing around with the notes and melodies, getting lost, swept up in a sea of familiarity as his emotions danced around the room, hitting the walls and bouncing back at him, sounding lovely to anyone he might let hear his tunes—never more than his parents and a few close friends and family—but never quite right to him...

  
It all felt as amazing as it had once upon a time.

  
Granted, nothing he ever composed on any other instrument ever felt anywhere as near beautiful, graceful, elegant, to him and his ears as anything he'd ever written on his piano had, but it was close enough to keep him sane, close enough to lift his spirits and bring him back to being the Merlin he had once been.

  
He sometimes allowed himself to wonder where he would be right that second if he were still playing, if he hadn't retired. Would he be in a different country? Would he be composing? Would he be playing right that second? Would he even still be alive?

  
He got so caught up in those thoughts, in the memories and  _what-ifs_ sometimes, that he had to remind himself that that life was behind him now. He wasn't a pianist anymore. He missed it sometimes, yes, but every time he looked at his old piano, the one he had grown up on, the one he had spent many days and hours at, he felt a pang in his chest of what it came to mean to him. He could hardly stomach looking at it some days, he could only imagine what he would feel sitting down to play at it again.

  
No, he told himself when his thoughts swirled in such a direction, that life was behind him now and it was for the better.

  
He still often dreamt of it, however, and woke up many nights humming a made up tune to himself, his fingers ghosting around the air, playing at something he would not allow himself anymore.

  
He might have mentioned it all to his psychiatrist, but the old man already made that worried  _face_  and had prescribed a handful of different medications to him over the years to deal with his anxiety, sleeping problems, and other issues that he said stemmed from all those years of being in the limelight, and those dreadful seven months that Merlin liked to refer to as "Seven months in hell," as a sort of play on the popular party game he never had the chance to play in his younger day, and he didn't quite feel like adding to that, thank you very much.

  
His other instruments kept him busy enough that he never missed it too much unless he allowed himself to dwell, anyway. So it was probably fine.

  
*

  
When Merlin was just a few months shy of his nineteenth birthday, his parents, Hunith and Balinor, sat him down for a  _talk_.

  
They were worried about him, they said. He spent too much of his day locked away in his room, playing music, obsessing over getting it  _just right._  And when they didn't hear the melody coming from his own fingers, they knew he was listening to it, reading up on it, sightreading—he had found the exercise silly, tedious at first, he was a prodigy, after all, but eventually found that it dulled the buzz in his brain to a low hum instead, allowing him a moment to relax, come down from his stress and anxiety that seemed to always be surging through him for some unknown reason. Now, he picked up books, printed off music and just read over it, imagining in his head what it would sound like in the different instruments he played. He found the exercise just as soothing as the actual act of playing was—or something of the such.

  
They admitted, much to his dismay, that perhaps it was partially their own fault for thrusting him into music when he showed such skill, that they hadn't encouraged him to explore other avenues enough, that they hadn't introduced him to people not involved in music, that it was their fault he was so…  _obsessed_. And the way they said it made Merlin wonder if they'd been talking to his psychiatrist.

  
According to Dr. Gaius, the kind old man who listened and liked to look at him with a face full of worry and a look that said he was almost afraid Merlin was much more fragile than he realized, he had anxiety issues, OCD, a sleeping disorder, was a bit of an eccentric—he had done everything  _but_  come right out and call him bat-shit crazy. He liked the old man well enough, he was one of the few people who didn't give two shits what Merlin had been able to do when he was seven, but he often wondered if he broke doctor-patient privilege to confide his own concerns to Merlin's parents after their sessions.

  
After an hour or so of them voicing their concerns and going on about how he really needed to do something else with his time, with his life—not that he did, actually; he had earned enough that he didn't ever need to work another day in his life, but he couldn't very well just hole himself up in his room for the rest of it, playing music that was never perfect anyway, hiding from what he wanted to play most of all but wouldn't allow himself  _near_  anymore—they brought up his friend William.

  
William, just Will to most, was a childhood friend of Merlin's, and a bit of a prodigy himself, though he had never received the fame that Merlin had, thank God. His instrument of choice was the trumpet, and then later the trombone. Unlike Merlin, he had played most of his life, learned music theory as he honed his skills and craft growing up, he attended normal school, made friends, had a real life and girlfriends and all that normal stuff. He had a relatively  _normal_   _life_ , he just so happened to be crazy talented as well. And Merlin would be lying if he said he wasn't jealous of that fact.

  
And Will, as it turned out, would be attending the famed Camelot Institute For The Musically Gifted starting the coming school year. He'd been hoping to get into it for most of his life, as most aspiring musicians in London and all over the world did, and had managed to get in some how—Merlin suspected it had something to do with the letter of recommendation he'd typed up and made Merlin sign a few months back, but he didn't give his friend a hard time about it, as getting in had made him happier than he had been before in his life.

  
Merlin was glad for his friend, really he was, but he didn't see what it had to do with him.

  
As it turned out, it had  _everything_  to do with him.

  
The second he turned 16, he had started to receive letters, phone calls, e-mails, personal visits from those involved in admissions over at The Institute, as it was so fondly called, wanting him to enroll there. He always turned them down, always on the basis that his musical career was much more important than school at first, and then, once he'd retired, he said that he needed a  _break_  from music, not to be somewhere he would constantly be surrounded by it.

  
Even so, they still called, still sent letters, still made sure he knew his presence was very much wanted there. Until he turned 21, the cut-off for admissions, he suspected he'd still get letters and calls and e-mails. Hell, he strongly suspected that even  _after_  he turned 21,they'd still try to recruit him, but he wanted no part of it.

  
His parents had always supported his decision in turning them down, but now that Will was going, now that he wouldn't be alone there…

  
He was  _going_.

  
No amount of begging, dealing, pleading, crying, yelling, arguing, silent-treatmenting could change their minds. They'd already called the admissions office, got everything set up and in order. All he had to do, they told him, was fill out the papers detailing what instrument he'd be "specializing" in, move into the house they'd bought for him near the school campus, get himself to class every day, do his school work, and just...  _take care_  of himself.

  
They were thrusting him, a child prodigy with no prior experience with peers outside of those he met on the musical circuit, with no real experience with things outside of his music and life there at home with his parents and instruments, into the life of a student at a place like The Institute.

  
If Merlin didn't know any better, he would have been inclined to think that his parents hated him.

  
*

 

* * *

 


	2. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He gave his situation, his house, another moment of thought—he had all his instruments, music, his clothes and trinkets, everything he would need to be at home in his new home. Even with all that stuff, it was still empty, unlived in, and, for a boy who had never been away from his parents for more than a night or two at a time, it was... depressingly haunted with what it lacked—and then turned to Will.
> 
>  
> 
> "What do you think?" He asked.
> 
>  
> 
> Will tuned to him, pursed his lips, nodded. "Yeah, it's great, Mer. Nice and big. You've got plenty of room, plenty of silence to fill with your madness. And it looks like your folks took care of everything: furniture, television, cable, internet, phone, electricity, water, gas, all your stuff. You should settle in nicely here."

* * *

 

  
*

 

The Camelot Institute For The Musically Gifted had been founded in 1902 by an Edward Pendragon and had gone on to be the alma mater of many famous musicians. Indeed, if you attended The Camelot Institute, you were all but guaranteed a job in the industry with the instrument of your choosing once you graduated—whether that be at age 23, 36, or anywhere in between—as The Institute had  _quite_ a reputation for being the best at producing musicians. Those who graduated from it were considered the best of the best of the best, and secured their futures with their diplomas and certificates.

  
Their rules differed vastly from most universities and other learning facilities in London, in the world—they were able to get away with it due to private funding and other such legal loopholes that most were unaware of—the most noteworthy of which being the age limits on the students. Those enrolled ranged from age 16, the youngest you could be when you started, to 35—36 if they were in their last semester and close to graduating. There were different levels of degrees and varying levels of skill and study that took varying amounts of years to complete, that Merlin didn't bother learning about. He had received a thick school manual with his other necessary papers in the mail, but had quickly thrown it to the side. He didn't even want to be there, really, he didn't see why he should bother learning their rules.

  
Will, though, seemed to have read it all and insisted on parroting it all back to Merlin when they were hanging out or out shopping for necessary school items, things for Merlin's new house, or just out getting used to the idea of being students of The Institute—Will enthusiastically, Merlin begrudgingly. Merlin hadn't seen his friend this excited about something since, well,  _ever_ , actually. And, honestly, he wanted to be thrilled for his friend, but there was such an odd sort of feeling buzzing about his head, through his veins, that he couldn't even feign interest in what Will was saying most of the time.

  
The rest of the summer—when had it become summer, anyway? Merlin  _swore_  it had just been Christmas not the other week—passed in a blur of chats and forced interaction, paperwork that Merlin didn't pay any attention to, shopping, distracting, too little time for music, and the packing of the things deemed necessary for his survival on his own in the coming school year. He would probably visit home often enough, yes, but he was moving out, he was to be on his own for the majority of the school year, and he needed to be prepared.

  
A week before classes were to start, Merlin's parents insisted he get moved into his new house early, get settled before school started, maybe mingle, meet some new friends or whathaveyou, and just get used to the idea of being on his own. They trusted Will wouldn't let him get into too much trouble, as he was moving into his student dorm room early as well—most people at The Institute  _did,_ apparently. Rather than a dorm room of his own, Merlin's parents had secured him a house that wasn't more than a fifteen minute walk to and from the campus, since he didn't know how to drive.

  
His parents sent him off with warm hugs and smiles, a few tears on his mother's part with whispered words of her little boy being all grown up now. He smiled at her, squeezed her tight, and tried not to let her see how unhappy he still was about all this. With a summer to grow used to the idea, Hunith had thought he had accepted it, in his own way.

  
Well, he  _hadn't_.

  
He had simply chosen to seal his aggravation away, recognizing a lost battle when he fought it. And so he packed and he shopped, and he had all the things he would need—new furniture that he vaguely approved when his parents picked it out, his instruments, clothes, et cetera, et cetera—sent to his new house without ever seeing it, sure that his parents had at least picked out something he wouldn't mind living in.

  
He hugged his father just as tightly as his mother, then. He strongly suspected that his father could tell how much he still disliked the idea of going to this school—in his younger days, Merlin had been very close to his father, but they had grown apart as he became more entangled in his music—but said nothing about it in front of his mother, as there really was no point, everything was already decided, everything was already planned out, all it would do was drag the whole thing out—and honestly, Merlin was just tried of trying to fight them on this.

  
After he finished saying his goodbyes, Will pulled up in his car, an old silver four-door that had a ding on the driver side from the time he tried teaching Merlin how to drive and he hit a pole, somehow managing to damage the side rather than the front of it. He slid into the passenger side, and was met with a questioning gaze from his oldest friend in the world. He gave him an exasperated look, measured and tired as he rattled off the address his mother had repeated to him a thousand times in the last few days, and Will drove off, waving to Hunith and Balinor through the window as he did so.

  
It was a forty-five minute drive from the Emrys household to Merlin's new house, and when they pulled up into the driveway Merlin was... Well, he wasn't sure  _what_  he was. The house was fine indeed, brick and rustic in a charming sort of way, he supposed, with a flat roof and a chimney, a sort of porch outside one of the second-floor windows that he suspected he would be able to go out on and then climb his way up to the roof, if he so felt inclined to on clear, crisp nights.

  
The front porch had a welcome mat and not much else, no sort of gate around it so it was a nice flat, uninterrupted little drop from the porch to the lawn below, lush and a light sort of color that said it hadn't been watered since the last rainfall. It would need to be mowed at some point, and Merlin wondered where one went to get a lawnmower or who one might hire to do such a thing for him.

  
There were no bushes on the lawn, or around the house, but a few tall trees scattered in the front yard, beautiful and tall, green and lush, and splashes of color here and there thanks to the odd flower bed or plant that he couldn't name.

  
Lined down the street were other houses, of course, all big and probably expensive as all hell—Merlin suspected this was not the sort of neighborhood he would fit in well with, but it was close enough to the school that he could see his parents' reasoning for sticking him here—no two looking quite the same. They all, however, had the look about them like whoever lived inside them were... Aloof, cold even. Their lawns were pristine, flowers and plants immaculate, not a paint chip out of place, not a driveway cracked. None of the houses looked  _lived in_  from the outside. There were no sprinklers on, no toys strewn about—there was no noise, either, for that matter. There was the off whistling of some birds, chattering of some wildlife, but nothing to hint at actual people living nearby.

  
It all seemed too  _perfect_ , too... put together and  _fake_  for Merlin's liking. Back home, they lived in a big house, sure, and he hardly ever ventured outside of it, but from his room he had a view of the street below, of all the houses and his neighbors—back there, there were toys and dogs and children, there was noise and  _life_  and it was such an inspiration, he would admit, to have such a view of it. He composed whole pieces, in his time, inspired by the laughter he couldn't hear, the games he didn't know the rules to. Here, however... He didn't see much to feel inspired by. If this was how his new life was to be, he felt, even more, that he was going to hate life at The Institute.

  
"Are we going to sit here all day or do you want to see the inside at some point?" Will teased, poking him in the arm to gain his attention. He had the best of intentions, Merlin knew, so he gave him a well-practiced smile and threw open his door, vaguely aware of Will turning off his car and following his lead.

  
When Merlin slammed the door shut, he stood for a minute, taking in the view outside, wondering to himself if the way the neighborhood looked had merely been obstructed by the nostalgia tinted glass of Will's car.

  
It had not.

  
  
If anything, if looked even more perfect and uninspiring than it had from _inside_  Will's car. And it even  _smelled_ fake. Like lawn care and chlorine—perhaps, he found himself wondering, they all had pools that the children practically  _lived in_  during the summer months. But, upon a moment of listening, he could hear nothing to give weight to such wonderings, no giggle, no splashing water. It was silent and dead and still.

 _  
Perfect_.

  
He walked away from the car mechanically, pulled the key out of his pocket and walked to the front door. It had the address just above the heavy-looking oak door—217—and a doorbell. He unlocked it, pushed the door open and peered inside before stepping over the threshold. Will pressed the doorbell as he followed him through, giving him a sheepish sort of look as a monotone sort of  _ding-ding-ding-ding- **dong**  _echoed through-out the house.

  
The pair trailed through the place in silence, exploring the various rooms and doors, flipping light-switches, opening cupboards, trapezeing around the unpacked boxes that the movers were told specifically not to touch, as they had been paid extra to unpack and put away certain things and rearrange the furniture upon their arrival so as to leave less work for Merlin to do himself.

  
After exploring the house in its entirety, Merlin and Will found themselves back in the living room, looking around still as they took it all in. Merlin had been silent the whole way through, still digesting everything. The house looked put together enough, his bedroom even, all picked out and furnished, all the rooms decorated, everything in its place and ready to be lived in. It felt, however, cold and empty, just as _un_ -lived in as the other houses in the neighborhood looked. He wondered if the neighbors could tell, just from looking at the exterior, that, despite all the furniture that was scattered through-out the house, despite all the  _stuff_ , it felt hollow and empty inside. He wondered if people ever thought that about  _him._

  
The house was smaller than the one he'd lived in with his parents, though still unnecessarily large and roomy, and with its high ceilings, cold, hardwood floors that covered all but a couple of rooms, ground floor plus a first floor, vintage looking wallpaper in most of the rooms… It felt empty and the farthest from home Merlin had ever been in his life. The lights, even, seemed dull and cast a sort of shadow upon everything it touched instead of lighting the place up.

  
The rooms were unimpressive—just  _rooms_. There was a patio, glass doors leading out to it with a set of blinds waiting to be pulled back to admire whatever view Merlin would have of his backyard or whatever was just beyond the back door, a couple of bathrooms, some closets, a kitchen, living room, sitting room, so many  _rooms_. He couldn't even begin to understand what he might do with so many rooms, but he decided that that was a problem for a different day.

  
Sitting near the glass doors that lead out to said patio was his piano, delivered just the day before. Indeed, the piano was the whole reason his parents had bought him the house, as they had anticipated him not wanting to leave it behind, and the dorms would not accommodate such a large instrument. The house had been the solution to  _that_  problem.

  
He gave his situation, his  _house_ , another moment of thought—he had all his instruments, music, his clothes and trinkets, everything he would need to be at home in his new home. Even with all that  _stuff_ , it was still empty, unlived in, and, for a boy who had never been away from his parents for more than a night or two at a time, it was... depressingly haunted with what it lacked—and then turned to Will.

  
"What do you think?" He asked.

  
Will tuned to him, pursed his lips, nodded. "Yeah, it's great, Mer. Nice and big. You've got plenty of room, plenty of silence to fill with your madness. And it looks like your folks took care of everything: furniture, television, cable, internet, phone, electricity, water, gas, all your stuff. You should settle in nicely here."

  
Merlin nodded. "Yeah, it's..." He sighed, unsure how to voice what he was feeling. He couldn't put it into proper  _words_ , he needed— _needed_ —to put it into music. He ached, like he hadn't in  _months_  now, to sit at his piano and play it out, to create a vivid picture with the chords and keys, relay the simple message in the only way that he knew how to, that this house was so cold and empty that he wasn't sure he would be able to stomach living in it for an entire school year.

  
But that wasn't who he was anymore, he remembered as something prickled beneath his skin, a sort of itch that could not be soothed, a restless sort of feeling that came with thinking of his old life, of playing and pianos.

  
"I know, Mer." Will nodded, giving him a small sort of smile. "You'll get used to it eventually, though. And with school starting soon, you won't have much time to dwell on it, will you?" He asked.

  
Merlin swallowed, debating whether Will could ever really understand or not. Still, he was his best friend, and he was  _trying_ , with the limited information Merlin gave him, gave  _anyone,_  he was still  _trying,_ so he supposed that counted for something.

  
"Right. Well," Will nodded again, giving the room they were standing in, one of the few with a sort of plush, white carpeting, another look over before letting his eyes come back to rest on Merlin's. "Welcome home, Merlin." He smiled.

  
Merlin smiled back, chuckling bitterly, unamused with the sentiment and threw himself down on the couch. The movers really  _had_  done a fine job of getting everything all set up, he would give them that. If nothing else, he could always say his new house was decently put together.

  
Will grinned, sat down on one of the leather chairs nearby and grabbed for the television remote, flipped on the TV and clicked through the channels until he settled on a show both him and Merlin enjoyed. They sat in near silence for some moments, enjoying whatever episode of  _Doctor Who_  that was playing—it looked like a special of some sort to Merlin, but he had never really followed the show, or any, for that matter, obsessively, so he couldn't be too sure—and making passing remarks about this or that until the episode ended and Will muted the television as some other show started.

  
Merlin looked over at him, raised an eyebrow in silent questioning.

  
"I have to get going, Merlin." He sighed after a moment, throwing the remote over to him. Merlin sat up on the couch, stomach dropping. He had known Will would have to leave at some point, that he would have to face his new house on his own in due time, but... He hadn't actually been prepared for that moment, for facing it all on his own, for dealing with everything that came with this transition by himself. He didn't know how to do any of this on his own, he didn't know how to do  _anything_  that didn't involve music.

  
"I still have to finish moving into my dorm, meet my roommates, get settled in and everything." He explained, standing up and stretching. "And tomorrow I have to go and finish filling out our paperwork—the last of it has to be done in person, and since  _you_  won't go finish  _yours_ , I have to do it for you, which'll take twice as long. Afterwards, though, I can come over, bring some food with me, since your parents didn't send you out into the world with  _food_ —are you going to be okay tonight or do I need to do your grocery shopping as well?" He asked, teasing for half a moment before giving Merlin a serious sort of look.

  
"I can order in, Will." Merlin told him, waving off the offer.

  
"Sure?"

  
"I know how to work a telephone."

  
"Do you? And here I thought all you prodigies were good for was making a big stink of things after you'd worn out your welcome." He grinned teasingly, grabbing his keys from where he'd thrown them on a nearby table.

  
Merlin rolled his eyes as Will let himself out, mumbling his goodbye as the door clicked shut ominously, echoing slightly in Merlin's ears. He took in a breath, left alone with his muddled thoughts and his new house. He slid down further on the couch and closed his eyes, hoping he would open them again and he would be back at his parents' house, and that this whole experience, this whole  _summer_ , had been nothing but an extremely long, unfortunate dream.  


*

 

* * *

 


	3. They're People, Merlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin was a child prodigy, famous the world over for his piano playing, but gave it all up at the tender age of 16. Years later, he finds himself, against his will, enrolled in a prodigious school for the musically gifted. With the help of some new friends, however, he slowly finds himself warming up to the idea of being there and, maybe eventually, even the idea of playing again.
> 
> "Indeed, they seemed to lose the whole afternoon there, first finishing their lunch and then just chatting, telling stories, getting to know one another, really, the room, the whole house, seeming full of life with them there. It was almost too easy, Merlin realized at some point, to fall into this, into laughter and the sort of relaxation that eased the anxious buzzing within him. He was still a little nervous, still worried he might make a complete arse of himself, but, somehow, he could still do this—this friendship thing that seemed to be happening with these perfect strangers that his best friend had taken it upon himself to introduce him to."

* * *

 

  
*

  
Merlin woke up on the couch the next morning, unaware that he'd even fallen asleep to begin with. He blinked, adjusting to the harsh lights as he sat up slowly, hungry, groggy, stiff, and  _really_  needing to pee. He swung himself up and, after finding a bathroom as quickly as he could, checked the time. It was only a little after six—how long had he been sleeping? And how the hell had he slept for so long? The first night in his new house and he had spent it on the couch—had Will even locked his door on the way out or had it been open for any random psycho to come in? He was still alive at least, so he supposed that counted for something.

  
He wandered into the kitchen, all slick floor and too many cupboards, an island counter set between the refrigerator and a long counter with bar stools lined up in front of it. Of course, it was empty of any sort of food, as his parents had expected him to go out and do his own grocery shopping at some point or another. He hadn't even been able to order anything to eat before falling asleep, leaving him hungry as all hell and without many options: He didn't know of any place that delivered this early in the morning, he didn't have a car, couldn't drive anyway, and he was pretty sure six AM was too early to call Will to ask for food or a ride. He could call a taxi, he supposed, but, somehow, he didn't have the energy to put into changing and going out, bringing the food back, preparing it, and then eating it—it all seemed like way too much effort for so early in the morning.

  
So he sighed instead, and, after a quick shower and change of clothes, spent the morning unpacking the few boxes he had to unpack and then most of the later morning and early afternoon up in what was meant to be his bedroom, playing his violin, an instrument he had grown quite fond of as of late. He composed some music, and played some of the sheet music he unpacked and pinned to his walls, covering a good section of it with the music he already had memorized—it was more for comfort than anything else, something to surround himself with, lose himself in, something to make it feel more like  _home_.

  
The sounds he had composed by the time Will sent him a text around one-thirty were melancholy with longing and emptiness, and as he scrawled the notes down, his hand shaking as he did so, he dropped the bow, moved to tears with the sounds swirling around his head, around the room. Or perhaps it was more than that...

  
He reached for his phone and clicked into the text, taking in a shaky sort of breath to calm himself as he read the single word:

 _  
[Text] From: Will: [_ Hungry? _]_

  
He laughed, then, a sound that fought against a sob that he wouldn't let loose, having forgotten just how  _damn_  hungry he was—he hadn't had anything to eat in almost twenty-four hours now, so he shot off a quick reply.

 _  
[Text] To: Will: [_ Starving _]_

  
And then he picked up his bow and sat it down next to his violin on his bed, carefully taking up the half-written piece and looking it over, hearing it in different keys and instruments as his eyes scanned the notes, the sheet music so thin and fragile in his hands as he shook his head, entertaining, for half a moment, what it might sound like if he sat down at his piano just  _one more time_  to bring it to life...

 _  
[Text] From: Will: [_ I'll bring over some pizza when I'm done at the school _]_

 _  
[Text] To: Will: [_ Time? _]_

 _  
[Text] From: Will: [_ 2:30ish _]_

 _  
[Text] To: Will: [_ See you then _]_

  
Finished with the conversation, he threw his phone down on the bed, let the sheet music drop there as well, and left the room, deciding to watch some television as a distraction and to get himself in a better frame of mind for when Will got there; just because he was his best friend didn't mean he needed to see him fall apart at the seams because of a damn piece Merlin was composing himself.

  
*

  
Will was late. Of course he was—he  _always_  was. It was Merlin's own damn fault for believing him, for thinking that he would be able to keep track of time for once. He never did it on purpose—or at least, that was the story he always seemed to stick with—but it was still an annoyance, nonetheless, especially when Merlin was hungry and Will had promised him food. Then it was  _beyond_ annoying.

  
Whatever he had been feeling up in his bedroom seemed to pass for the moment, making room  _for_  said annoyance and, well, hunger. He flipped off the television, bored with whatever had been playing, and tapped his fingers against the table, unsure what to do with himself, really. He  _would_  go back to his room, lock himself away with his violin and work on that piece some more, but Will would be here any minute now—well,  _maybe—_ andif he caught Merlin in a mood like that, if it came back to him, he would probably...  _Worry_  about him. Call his folks, perhaps, with concern in his voice, and they would be worried as well, and it would be Merlin's job to convince them that he was  _fine_ , that they didn't need to worry about him...

  
And he wasn't sure that he had the energy, the patience, to go through with all that so close to the beginning of the school year—the beginning of his  _first_  school year.

  
It hit him then, as he waited for Will, that this was  _real_. He couldn't wish any of this away; he could close his eyes and try to sleep off the realness of it, he could play all the empty and bittersweet music that he wanted to, but this was  _real_. He was on his own now, expected to start school in less than a week. He could make his own rules now, do whatever he wanted to—hell, he could eat ice cream for breakfast, stay up until dawn composing all the music he wanted to, and his parents couldn't say bum about it—to anyone else in his situation, he supposed that would have been a freeing sort of feeling,  _cool_  even...

  
So why was it so terrifying to him instead?

  
His wonderings were interrupted, however, with the dull  _ding-ding-ding-ding- **dong**_  of the doorbell. Will wasn't the sort to knock most of the time, let alone ring that damn bell for any reason other than to annoy Merlin, so he could only guess that perhaps his hands were too full to just walk right in. With a roll of his eyes—he seemed to be doing that a lot lately—he stood from the couch, crossed to the door, and yanked it open unceremoniously.

  
"It's about freaking—you're not Will." Merlin cut himself off, taken aback when he was met with a pretty face framed with a few dark, loose curls instead of Will and the pizza he had promised Merlin.

  
"Ah, no." The girl smiled nervously at him.

  
Merlin blinked at her, at the two guys and the other girl standing behind her, all smiling expectantly at him, as curious and wondering as he was. The two guys were holding pizzas and beverages, the girls bags of something or another slung on their arms. He suspected Will was somewhere behind them,  _and_  behind whatever  _this_  was.

  
As Merlin blinked awkwardly at them all, unsure how to respond to them, Will himself came walking up the porch, a stack of papers grasped in his hands. He walked around the group of people, stood to the side of the girl in the front, and gave Merlin a puzzled sort of look, quizzical, almost, as though he wondered why he hadn't invited these perfect strangers into his house already.

  
"What is this, Will?" Merlin asked him, eyebrows raised as he  _tried_  not to be rude in front of these people

  
"Your paperwork." He said, handing the stack of papers to his dumb-founded friend. "You're all ready to go, you just have to read through this, memorize your class schedule, all that fun stuff, and when school starts you have to take your—"

  
"Not  _this_ , William," Merlin hissed, waving the papers in front of him. " _That."_ He nodded to the group of people, teenagers, young adults— _whatever_ —that were standing in front of him.

  
"They're  _people_ , Merlin." He replied slowly, as though speaking to a child. "I know you've not been out in a while, but—" Merlin cut him off with a sharp look, the hand filled with paperwork falling to rest against his hip. He really wasn't in any sort of mood for Will's nonsense. Will merely sighed in response. "Look, they just wanted to meet you, all right?  _And_  they brought food, so you'd better let them in if you're hungry."

  
Merlin shook his head, exasperated with his friend but still incredibly hungry. So he stepped to the side and waved them in. "Come on in, erm," he looked to the pretty girl in the front, the one who rung the doorbell and smiled like Merlin was a million flowers blooming in early springtime after a harsh, bleak winter.

  
"Guinevere—well, my friends call me Gwen, so you can call me that—unless you'd rather call me Guinevere because we've just met and we're not actually friends yet—not that I don't want to be friends with you, but you might not want to be friends with me—not because there's anything wrong with me—or  _you_ , for that matter, I just—either one is fine with me." She blushed, smiling nervously at her own ramblings.

  
Merlin smiled at her, finding her nervousness endearing enough to thaw through his annoyance with Will for bringing people by without telling him, and gave her a little nod hello as she walked through the door, an audible "Wow," escaping her quieted lips at the sight before her.

  
"Gwen it is, then." He told her as the others stepped in as well, all smiling at him and admiring the sight before them.

  
"Not even started the school year yet and already you've got yourself an admirer, eh, Merls?" Will chuckled, clapping Merlin on the shoulder good-naturedly as he walked past him, shutting the door behind him as Merlin's brain tried to catch up with Gwen  _liking_  him, let alone anything else that was going on at the moment.

  
Will instructed them all to the kitchen and Merlin trailed along behind them, left, really, without much choice in the matter. The pizza and drinks were left on the island in the middle of the room and the bags that Gwen and the other girl had were placed on the counter to the side. Merlin stood in the doorway, awkward as ever, observing them as they all fluttered about the kitchen doing this and that as though they lived there themselves.

  
"We picked up the pizza I promised you," Will explained when he caught Merlin's eye. "And the girls insisted on picking up some actual food for you as well from the supermarket, because apparently you  _can't_  live off pizza and tea." He rolled his eyes as the other, as of yet unnamed, girl walked by him, flicked him on the back of the head as she placed some plates she had pulled down from a cabinet next to the pizza. "What did you end up ordering last night, anyway?" He asked, rather as an afterthought as he rubbed the spot she had flicked.

  
"Oh, erm," Merlin shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nothing—I fell asleep just after you left and just... Never got around to ordering anything." He shrugged again.

  
"When was the last time you  _ate_ , Merlin?" Gwen asked, almost demanding in a worried sort of tone as she paused what she was doing to to look at him.

  
"Uhm, just before I left home yesterday afternoon?" He told her, her dark eyes holding him to the spot with the truth.

  
"Well then we should probably get some food in you, eh, prodigy?" One of the guys, his hair long and almost  _flowing,_  teased, opening the boxes of pizza as Gwen and Will took food items out of the grocery bags and put them away, neither bothering to ask where Merlin might like this or that to go. He would have told them to just stick it anywhere, anyway, so he supposed it didn't matter.

  
"Right, but..." He paused, cocking his head ever so slightly. "Who are you guys, exactly?"

  
"Introductions in a moment, Merlin," The girl who had flicked Will on the back of the head told him. "For now, come get some food before these two eat it all up—can't you tell from looking at them that they'd eat you out of house and home if you let them?" She teased, swatting the boys' hands away from the boxes and holding out a plate to him.

  
He smiled at her, a bit nervous as he crossed the kitchen and took the plate from her, grabbed a couple of slices and helped himself to a drink, grabbed a handful of napkins and turned about as quickly as he could. "I guess come to the living room when you've all got your food, then?" He told them over his shoulder, blinking as he headed that way himself, the absurdity of the situation not lost at all to him.

  
Moments later, they were all in the living room, sprawled about on the furniture and floor casually enough, eating their food, drinking their soda and tea, laughing about stories being shared, the introductions having been done and forgotten in lieu of other, more interesting matters.

  
Other than Gwen who, in her light capri pants and a flowy sort of tank top, was sitting opposite Merlin on the couch with her infectious smile, sneaking glances at him every now and then out of the corner of her eye, there was also Morgana, the one who flicked Will and swatted the boys' hands away from the pizza. She was all long, dark locks and a laugh that made Merlin want to laugh right along with her. She was tucked up in a summery sort of skirt and a top that gave her a splash of color in the arm-chair nearest the couch, clogs on the floor and her legs curled under her.

  
In the armchair across the room from Morgana, there was Percival, a muscly sort of bloke who made no illusions to enjoying showing off his arms—he apparently had an obsession with his own arms and didn't own a single shirt with sleeves, if Gwaine was to be believed. He was, however, a gentle giant, it would seem, friendly, if pleasantly witty and sarcastic enough with Gwaine.

  
And Gwaine, the one with the hair that almost  _flowed_  when he moved, almost rivaling Morgana and Gwen's for the best hair in Merlin's house, was all teasings and flirtations most of the time, easy-going with the sort of laugh that almost gave way to a shady or unpleasant sort of past, had opted for the floor. He made it a point to tell Merlin how plush and  _comfortable_  it was, asking several times if he considered what it would be like to have sex on it.

  
Will seemed to make himself comfortable enough in the same leather chair he had taken up the previous night. Unfortunately for him, it was just next to Morgana, leaving him in her line of fire when he said or did something particularly stupid that she felt he needed to be punished for, resulting in her throwing a pillow or two and some crust at him over the course of the afternoon and early evening.

  
Indeed, they seemed to lose the whole afternoon there, first finishing their lunch and then just chatting, telling stories, getting to know one another, really, the room, the whole  _house_ , seeming full of life with them there. It was almost  _too easy,_ Merlin realized at some point, to fall into this, into laughter and the sort of relaxation that eased the anxious buzzing within him. He was still a little nervous, still worried he might make a complete arse of himself, but, somehow, he could still do this—this friendship thing that seemed to be happening with these perfect strangers that his best friend had taken it upon himself to introduce him to.

  
Which brought him back, eventually, to  _why_  he might have brought them there in the first place...

  
"So why did you bring these guys here again?" He asked Will when a moment that didn't seem to be filled with laughter and talking popped up.

  
"I told you, they wanted to meet you." He stated simply.

  
"Right, but—"

  
"Gwaine here," he interrupted, pointing in the general direction of him. "Is one of my roommates, and when I mentioned your name—we were at The Institute finishing up our paperwork and he wanted to to know why I was taking so long, so of course  _your_  name came up—he said he'd be interested in meeting you, and I was coming this way after I finished at the school anyway, so I thought I'd bring him along."

  
"What about the others?"

  
"Gwen's baby brother is our third roommate, and Gwaine knew Gwen was a huge fan, so he called her up, and she was hanging out with Morgana, so they both came, and then we ran into Percival as we were leaving the school, and,  _well_." He finished with a shrug, as though that was explanation enough.

  
Merlin nodded in understanding but then blinked as the words sank in.

  
"'Huge fan'?" He quoted, giving Gwen a sideways look.

  
She blushed in response. "Well,  _yes_ , I mean—you're  _you_ —Merlin Emrys. Probably the most famous pianist in the world."

  
"But I don't play anymore." He reminded her.

  
"That doesn't make you any less talented, though."

  
"Oh, I don't know about that—I haven't touched it, let alone played," he nodded towards where he knew, all too well, his piano was sitting, almost begging to be played. "In over two years now." He shook his head, trying to play it off with a smile.

  
"Wasn't it two in April?" Will asked.

  
"Mm-hm." Merlin nodded, reaching for his tea to take a sip.

  
"Still can't believe  _you_ , of all people, have gone so long without touching the damn thing—you were so obsessed growing up. I swear to God," Will turned to Gwen, Morgana, Gwaine, and Percival in turn, a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he turned his attention back to Gwen. "He was composing this piece once, right, and he spent a fucking week straight just sitting there, trying to perfect it, get it to sound  _just right_. He only got up to use the bathroom, he didn't sleep, took his meals there, wouldn't talk to his parents, wouldn't talk to  _me_ , wouldn't do anything but work on  _that piece._  He didn't even finish the damn thing, just had to get up and move on because he had a concert to play over in the States that he couldn't get out of. On the plane ride there, according to his dad, he sat there and played it out in the air in front of him until he passed out from exhaustion."

  
"That's not even a  _little_  true." Merlin interjected indignantly.

  
"No, but it could be, Mer. It could be."

  
"In what universe?"

  
"The one where you're bat shit crazy."

  
"I thought that was this one."

  
"My point exactly."

  
Merlin rolled his eyes and craned his neck around Gwen to get a glimpse at Morgana. "Gana? Would you mind hitting him with something for me?" He asked her.

  
"Oh my pleasure, Merlin." She cooed, picking up a throw pillow from the floor and pelting Will with it. He laughed and nodded his thanks to her, grinning appreciatively as the others did the same, everyone falling into fits of laughter and smiles for a reason Merlin couldn't quite name, all trying to talk over one another for a moment of nonsense and hysteria until a shrill sort of sound pierced through the room, silencing them for the briefest of moments until they all burst out laughing once more, Merlin's stomach aching from all the laughing he was doing that afternoon, so uncharacteristic and welcome for him that nothing else mattered—not the house, not school, not the piano, not anything.

  
Eventually, they all quieted down enough for Morgana to realize the sound was her cell phone and that she needed to answer it before it started making that sound  _again_. She excused herself to the kitchen to grab another cup of tea and the call, warning Gwaine not to take her seat under penalty of death as she did so.

  
"Merlin," Will began again, catching his attention as his chuckling finally subsided.

  
"Hm?"

  
"About your paperwork..."

  
"I thought you took care of it all?"

  
"I  _did_ , but there are a few things you should know, and if I don't tell you  _now_  I'll forget all about it, so just listen, right? None of that pouty "I don't want to go" bullshit that I'll just ignore anyway." He gave him a significant sort of look, eyebrows raised with his meaning.

  
"Fine." Merlin rolled his eyes, stretching his arms above him and cracking his knuckles as Will reached over and picked up Merlin's stack of  _papers_  from off the table in the middle of the room.

  
"I still don't understand why Will had to fill out your paperwork for you." Percival said, more a question than a statement.

  
"Because our prodigy child here doesn't even want to  _go_  to The Institute, eh, Merlin?" Gwaine asked, smirking slightly.

  
Merlin shot Will a look. "Just tell all my secrets why don't you."

  
"That's the plan."

  
"Oh, don't go blaming poor William, Merls," Gwaine said. "I was just making conversation and he was aggravated enough that he told me."

  
"Right, but," Gwen interrupted before Merlin had a chance to retort. "Why don't you want to go? It's a great opportunity and you'll be surrounded by talented people and—"

  
"Yeah, I know, Gwen," he cut in with a lithe little shake of his head. "I just... I don't know, it's not... it's not  _me_." He sighed, exasperatedly searching for the way to put it all into words, reminding him once again that he was better with music, with notes and melodies, than he was with words and people, reminding him that he didn't know what the hell he was doing here or why these people even wanted to be friends with him.

  
"Right,  _well,"_ Will said pointedly. "Doesn't matter now, does it? You're enrolled, you're going, so suck it up, and  _listen_ , Merlin. At The Institute, everyone specializes in certain, erm, areas of study, I think, yeah?" He threw a glance to Gwen, who nodded at him to keep going. "Certain instruments and whathaveyou, and you have to fill out the information for whatever area of study, whatever instrument, you want to specialize in, and then answer some odd questions about your music, your interests, career goals, and odd things like that so they can generate a schedule for you accordingly. I've decided on the trombone—"

  
"You're better at the trumpet."

  
"And when it came to  _you_ ," Will said, ignoring him. "I put you down for the violin, since that's what you've been messing around with the most lately. So you'll have to bring it with you on the first day. If you'd rather switch to something else, though, you can at any time. You just have to find the office and tell them what it is you want to switch to and you'll get a whole new schedule."

  
"Right, but, why the huge stack?" Merlin asked, holding his hands out for the papers. Will leaned over, passed them to Gwen who handed them over to Merlin. For the first time, he flipped through it, eyes catching on key words and bolded sections, very quickly skimming through the main ideas of a few of them.

  
"It's your schedule, a map of the school, your storage unit number, class descriptions, another school manual, in case you lost your first one, teacher names, and other important information on the school and coursework, the programs, degrees, certificate programs—things like that." Gwen explained for him. "During the first week," she continued, tucking one of her curls behind her ear. "First years are expected to go down to the office and schedule an appointment with one of the class counselors to help plan out your overall school plan—what you plan on studying in the long run, if you want a degree or just certificates, when you hope to graduate by—things like that."

  
Merlin nodded slowly, only half listening as his eyes fell, briefly, on what would be his class schedule before flipping through the rest of the stack. Once he was finished, he threw it back to the table with a light sort of thud.

  
"Sounds great." He sighed.

  
"Don't sound  _too_  thrilled." Percival teased.

  
"Yeah, people might think you're over-eager for the school year to  _begin."_ Gwaine added, sitting up and stretching.

  
Despite himself, Merlin found himself letting out a chuckle at their tones. Perhaps, he would admit to himself, this school thing wouldn't be so bad after all. Not as long as he had them, Percival, Morgana, Gwen, Gwaine, Will, as friends to help see him through it.

  
" _That_  was my idiot brother." Morgana sighed, walking back into the room and falling into her chair with her fresh cup of tea.

  
"You have a brother?" Merlin asked curiously. The subject changed, his attention reigned back in.

  
"He just as charming as you, then?" Will asked.

  
"He wishes." She snorted, taking a sip. "He's two years younger than me and as full of himself as anyone you've ever met. Anyway," She sighed again, curling into the chair further. "Our father is having some sort of dinner or party of some sort tonight, and I have to be there, so I'm afraid I'll have to duck out early so I can get ready and stand around for the rest of the evening with a house full of old men trying to pretend they're _not_ trying to look down my dress." She rolled her eyes.

  
Merlin nodded his understanding, knowing they would all leave for the night eventually. Unlike the previous night, however, he wasn't dreading the moment of their departure, wasn't dreading having to face the emptiness all on his own. Rather, he was looking forward to it—not to them leaving, necessarily, more to... having a few nice memories already, to having the echo of laughter around him instead of the silence doubling in on itself in a nerve-wrecking sort of way.

  
"When do you have to leave?" Gwen asked.

  
"Well the dinner starts at seven-thirty, and I'll need at least a half-hour to get ready, so..." She looked off in thought for half a moment, a sly sort of smile on her face before continuing. "I should probably be out of here by five to seven, at the latest."

  
"Is that enough time to get home from here?" Merlin asked.

  
"Plenty of time, Merlin. Plenty of time." She told him.

  
"How—"

  
"Morgana here," Gwaine interrupted. " _Lives_  three houses down from here, Merlin."

  
"Really?" He asked, thinking back to pulling up the previous day and wondering which one she might live in. Which house, he wondered, looked like Morgana Le Fay lived inside of it?

  
"Well, don't get used to it or anything," She told him apologetically. "I live in a dorm with Gwen and our friend Mithian during the school year. My brother, though, lives at home, so if you make nice with him he might give you a ride occasionally." She gave him a slow wink, confusing him with her laughter that went around the room to Gwen, Percival, and Gwaine, as well.

  
"Her brother is into guys—well, girls, too, but he's dated more guys than girls lately." Percival explained, the first to fall out of his laughter.

  
"Yes, and it's too bad you're not as well—the pair of you would make such a  _lovely_  couple, Merlin." Morgana teased, eliciting a laugh from Merlin himself that time.

  
Gwaine stood up then, and made a big show of stretching out, complaining of the carpeting only being so comfortable for so many hours before it took a toll on a person. He insisted that if they were going to do this more often—which they  _were_ , he told Merlin, the others all nodding in agreement—he would need to get another damn chair or something for him to sit on.

  
They all had a laugh at him as he wandered off for something, perhaps for the sake of just stretching out, and spent the next half hour discussing odds and ends before Morgana declared that she needed to get going now—her father would be upset if she was late, after all, and no one wanted  _that_  this close to the school year.

  
After exchanging numbers with Merlin, she told him she would pop by first thing in the morning to see that he had a proper breakfast, and then she showed herself out, allowing Gwaine a place to sit for the next hour that they were there until the others all agreed that they ought to get going as well—they  _had_  been there most of the day, after all, and hadn't had half a chance to get dinner or finish setting up their own dorm rooms or anything.

  
Just as Morgana had, Gwen, Percival, and Gwaine all made sure to get and give their cell phone numbers to Merlin, and then they all, along with Will, filed out the front door, telling him they would have to do this again sometime soon, Gwen, in particular, giving him a lingering sort of look as she left.

  
Merlin locked the door behind them and leaned against it for a moment.

 _  
Well_.

  
That had been an exhausting sort of day— _fun_ , but exhausting. He should probably have gotten himself something to eat—Gwen and Morgana  _had_  made a point of bringing him food, after all—but instead he found himself dragging his feet up the stairs and to his bedroom. Carefully, he put his violin away, tucked his sheet music into a drawer, and tucked himself into bed, looking forward to what the morning might bring for the first time in a long time.

  
*

 

* * *

 


	4. Flight of The Bumblebee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And, after almost three years of turning down Uther Pendragon, of all people, a man who always got what he wanted, the one thing Arthur could say with absolute certainty about him, about Emrys, was that he was stubborn as all hell.
> 
>  
> 
> And he had to respect that, just a little.

* * *

 

*

Igraine Pendragon had been in love with music. Melodies flowed through her blood, lyrics poured from her heart, she  _was_  music, and she inspired music in others. She danced on notes, she thrived on lullabies, drank movements like a liquid meant to sustain her, treasuring the way it all flowed through her and around her more than she treasured anything else in the world.

  
According to Uther Pendragon, his late wife had been the very embodiment of musical talent. They had met at The Institute as students—her a harpist, him a cellist—and he had been drawn instantly to her, to the way she carried herself, the way she got lost in her music, moved and lovely with every single note, every single piece that she played. He was smitten from the very second he saw her. Lucky for him, she felt the exact same way about him.

  
By the time Uther's father passed and he took over running The Institute, he and Igraine had been married for some time now, and, though they had recently gone through a rough patch that resulted in Igraine having a daughter with another man, they had reconciled and were expecting a child together—a boy that would be named Arthur.

  
She had high hopes for Arthur, Uther often said, hopes that he would be as gifted as his parents were, that he would love music just as much as she did, that it would mean as much to him as it did to them. She sang the most beautiful of lullabies to herself, to him, played glorious music for him until her stomach became too big with him to play anymore, and even then she still sang to him, she still listened to music and made sure he could hear it as well; Uther, even, began to play music for them, sitting down nightly to play wonderful music for her, for Arthur, for Morgana, whom he accepted as his own daughter. Arthur was surrounded by music before he was even born, and they had hoped that it would pay off.

  
Since both Igraine and Uther were musically gifted—and Morgana, even, was showing such interest in music already—it was expected that Arthur would be as well. Of course, they would very much let him gravitate towards whatever instrument he wanted to play, let him find his talents in his own time, but…

  
Igraine would admit, when prompted, that she very much wanted him to play the flute. She herself had hoped to play the instrument that she had always been enchanted with, but, well, in an unfortunate twist of fate, she found she could never get her mouth to cooperate with what needed to be done to play such a lovely instrument. She was naturally gifted at the harp, and she loved it, yes, but there was always something in her that was a tad resentful that she could never play the one instrument that she wanted to most of all. And Morgana, well, she showed more interest in the piano than any woodwind or stringed instrument Igraine had tried to introduce her to. Of course, that could very well change with age, but she had little doubt in her mind that her daughter would grow up a pianist.

  
So if Arthur grew up a flautist… she wouldn't be upset about it in the least.

  
Some months later, when Uther held Arthur in his arms, tears threatening to pour down his face as the doctor told him that his wife had, sadly, passed away, he promised himself, he promised Arthur and his now deceased wife, that Arthur would grow up to be the flautist that Igraine had always hoped he would be. He would grow up with music, he would grow up talented, and he would make his mother  _proud_. That much, Uther would be sure of.

  
*

  
Arthur Pendragon was simply of the opinion that "Flight of the Bumblebee" had been composed by Satan to torture flutists and make them doubt their skills. It was full of so many high notes that were meant to be played so quickly and in such succession—and when the hell was he supposed to  _breathe?—_ that he loathed having to practice it.

  
But practice it he must, as his father expected him to have mastered it by the end of the first semester—"More than enough time," he had said when he handed the piece off to Arthur along with several other pieces that were a  _breeze_  in comparison—and he just  _knew_  he wouldn't have as much time to dedicate to the pieces his father expected him to play when his classes and instructors would have different expectations of him. He shouldn't have been having so much trouble with it—he'd been playing since he was seven, for God's sake!—but it was a challenging piece by anyone's standards, so he was inclined to forgive himself for it for now, so early on in working on it.

  
Standing in his bedroom, with his music stand raised in front of him, flute brought up to his mouth as he glanced at the mess of notes he was expected to play through flawlessly within a few months, Arthur took in a breath, poised his fingers over the keys and straightened his back as he blew out, playing through a few scales from memory that he'd been using at the beginnings of his sessions for years now. With a scrunch of his nose, he pulled his head joint out a touch and then played through them again, satisfied this time with the way all the notes sounded.

  
He pushed his shoulders back, and kept his eyes trained on the sheet music in front of him for some minutes, playing slowly through a few measures that looked like nothing but trouble in the beginning of the piece. When he heard a rapping on his door, his concentration slipped, and that high  _c_  he was supposed to play came out sharp and dreadful and veered lowly towards the end. He winced but played through the rest of the measure, cheeks flushed with heat in shame and embarrassment as his father clucked his tongue, approaching him slowly.

  
Arthur let out a breath and lowered his flute, turned to face his father as he stood just behind him, inspecting the sheet music strewn all about the room, scales taped to the wall, posters of classical musicians and pop artists mixed about everywhere. If his father had his way, Arthur's room would have been a damn shrine to the classical musicians he so wanted his son to be like. And if Arthur had had things  _his_  way… Well, he tried not to put so much stock in what could never be.

  
"You haven't been working on your high notes?" Uther asked, sharp, critical eyes coming to rest on Arthur now, making him feel small for a moment, reminding him of his younger days and never being good enough at doing what he and Arthur's tutors, private instructors, wanted him to do. But then he remembered that he was damn near twenty years old, and he straightened up once again, chin jutting out defiantly.

  
"I  _have,_  but I slip sometimes—it happens. I've only just—"

  
"No excuses, Arthur," Uther cut in, holding his hand up. "This is your third year at The Institute, you're expected to be up to par with these things. You, of all people, are expected to work hard and do your absolute best every time you play. You'll be running the school one day, if you can't hit a simple high c, you can hardly expect anyone to view you as one fit to run such a school, now can you?" He demanded, stern and expectant in the way he had always been, both inside and outside of the school, The Institute.

  
Arthur exhaled, a sound just shy of a sigh, and shook his head. Most of the conversations he had with his father concerned music, concerned Arthur's ability, how he was sounding, how he was doing, how the school was doing, who the up and comers were in the music world whom he  _had_  to have attend his school at any cost—things of the such. The Camelot Institute For The Musically Gifted was Uther's  _life,_ and it was expected to be Arthur's as well, whether he wanted it to be or not.

  
As such, it wasn't rare or unexpected for Uther to see to Arthur during the summer break, check up on his progress and playing, mostly just taking his word for how he was doing for those glorious few months that Arthur was allowed the semblance of freedom, but... He never seemed to have time to just  _pop in_  on his son—especially during practice time. So to just drop in on his practice unannounced, especially this close to the start of the school year… Well, obviously  _something_  was going on.

  
"No, father. I'll work on it." Arthur told him, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He only had a few days of break left, after all, he didn't want to spend them confined to his room because of his attitude. He had plans with his friends just that evening, he didn't want to have to cancel on them just because he couldn't keep his tongue in check for the five minutes his father would be talking to him.

  
"See that you do." Uther nodded, leaving the rest of the thought unsaid,  _See that you don't embarrass me, see that you don't disgrace the family name, see that you don't disgrace the school—Again._  Because,  _of course_ , the school's image was the only thing that mattered.

  
"I thought you would be at the school right now," Arthur began a moment later, treading carefully. "What with the new year starting in just days now—I thought you had a lot of work to do this time of year?"

  
"I do," Uther nodded, snapping his attention back to matters at hand and not the flute in Arthur's. "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

  
"Really?" Arthur asked skeptically.

  
"Yes. Do you remember that prodigy from a few years back? The piano one that retired when he was just sixteen?" He asked.

  
"Emrys?" Arthur asked instantly, tossing a glance to a poster on his closet door with the boy prodigy himself on it,  _sure_  that was who his father was referring to. In the picture on the poster, it was Emrys, Merlin, sitting in front of his piano, spotlight lighting up the stage in the middle of a darkened room, face looking focused, fingers mid-chord, his eyes closed slightly in concentration...

  
There was no way his father would be away from the school right now for anyone  _other_  than Emrys.

  
Merlin Emrys had been… well,  _amazing_ , in his time. Arthur had seen him play live once and once only at his last concert, the one that marked the end of his career. He had been just as great as everyone always said he was, so the news that he retired… Well, it had certainly come as a shock to Arthur, suffice to say. Honestly, though he would never admit to his father, who had dragged him and his sister along with him to see the potential student play in person, he thought Emrys had been  _fantastic_. The way he had played—there had been a certain spark there, some sort of  _passion_  that Arthur envied, that was lacking from his own playing.

  
He wouldn't admit it to his father, to any of his friends, but Merlin Emrys had easily been one of his favorite performers, though he had only seen him live the one time. And then he had retired, given it all up, leaving Arthur feeling a bit empty inside, lacking something he didn't quite understand.

  
As of late, he had been thinking more and more about Emrys' decision to retire, and, really, he could see himself starting to …  _understand_  why he had done it, why he would give it all up. He wanted to pretend that he didn't, but…

  
The whole damn world had been obsessed with the kid his entire life, and  _everyone_  had wanted a piece of him. Arthur had read enough articles and books, seen enough television and movies, to know that that sort of pressure was known to make even the best men crumble. So he was willing to let it go, to let his favorite musician slip away into the oblivion he so clearly craved.

  
Uther, however, had been a bit more obsessed with the Emrys boy for quite a few years, going on to whoever would listen, including his own, often unwilling, son and daughter, about his plans to recruit the boy, if you will, to secure his spot at The Institute the very  _second_  he turned sixteen. He had already accomplished so much in his younger years, he was sure to continue doing great things with the rest of the life, and if Uther could attach such a name to his school…

  
He was sure it would mean great things for  _everyone_.

  
On the boy's birthday, Uther made sure a card was sent to him, a personal enough message inscribed within along with note of his hopes that Merlin would attend his school in due time.

  
A week later, he had placed the first of many phone calls to him and his parents to try to convince him to attend The Institute, as he had never responded to the card in any sort of way. And he kept calling, sending letters, e-mails, gifts, even, to buy his attention, to get him to look at The Institute and what it had to offer for him, what he could accomplish if he attended for three or so years.

  
But Emrys had been so,  _so_  stubborn, refusing all his offers and advances and  _bribes_. Even when Uther had paid him a visit in person—something he  _never_  did, no matter how high-profile the prospective student was—he had still said no. Arthur would be lying if he said he didn't regret missing  _that_  meeting—the look on his father's face alone had probably been  _priceless_.

  
But then Emrys had retired, and Arthur had thought, for half a moment, that his father would give up pursuing the boy. But just because world interest died down some—Arthur still saw the name in newspapers and tabloids every once in a while, but it wasn't as bad as it had been just a few years ago—didn't mean Uther had given up snagging him up. He still called, still had his secretary call, still e-mailed and sent letters and brochures; he still would not give up on having the boy attend.

  
And, after almost three years of turning down Uther Pendragon, of all people, a man who  _always_  got what he wanted, the one thing Arthur could say with absolute  _certainty_  about him, about  _Emrys_ , was that he was stubborn as all hell.

  
And he had to respect that, just a little.

  
"Merlin Emrys, that's the one." Uther said, almost giddy with the name in his mouth.

  
"What about him? He hasn't come out of retirement or anything." Surely,  _that_  would have inspired something of a party in the Pendragon household—both for Uther  _and_  Arthur's sake. But… why else would he be bring up the name to Arthur, all these years later? He never spoke his name much anymore, merely mumbled occasionally under his breath at dinner and in his office about getting that  _damn_  prodigy boy to attend his school come hell or high water someday.

  
"No, no. But he has,  _finally_ , agreed to attend The Institute." Arthur's eyes widened and he went slack-jawed for a moment as he allowed the news to settle in. Merlin Emrys. Attending The Institute.  _That was_ …

  
"Really? After all this time? What's changed his mind?" He asked curiously when words finally returned to him. Three years of stubborn 'no's and then now, all of a sudden, he was going to be attending, just like that? Something had to have changed his mind, and Arthur couldn't help but wonder at it.

  
"I couldn't say. But, it doesn't matter." Uther said. "All that matters is that he  _will_  be attending. However, there is one  _slight_  problem," He sighed, eyes trained back on Arthur now. "The rest of his paperwork has just been completed and it appears that he will  _not_  be specializing in piano." He shook his head and clicked his tongue in the way he did when disappointed, and Arthur could tell that  _this_   _news_  disappointed him more than most things usually did.

  
Arthur nodded slowly, not sure that he could have expected him to do such a thing. Emrys had made it  _perfectly_   _clear_  in the last interview he had given that he would not be returning to the piano for some time—if he ever did at all. His father really couldn't have expected him to go back on that promise just because he would be attending his school now, for whatever reason.

  
"What's he specializing in, then?"

  
"Violin." Uther shook his head, almost disgusted with the word. Uther himself played the cello, and was quite fond of most string instruments, but, Arthur supposed, when it came to Merlin Emrys, he was expected to be disappointed with anything other than the piano, the one thing he was known all over the world for.

  
"Emrys plays the  _violin?"_  Arthur asked instead, his shock genuine.

  
"Among other instruments, according to the young man who took care of his paperwork." His father replied off-handedly.

  
"Wait, he didn't even fill out his own  _paperwork?_ " Arthur asked, amused and a tad… appalled. What kind of person didn't even fill out their own damn paperwork for the school they were choosing to attend? A school any young musician in London, in the  _world_ , would  _kill_  to attend in his place? Just what kind of lazy, spoiled person  _was_  Emrys these days? And, more importantly, had he always been that way? The interviews and tabloids had always made him out to be a respectable, polite, genuine young man, but… Were they wrong? Why was it so upsetting that they might have been?

  
"No, a William something took care of it all for him, said something about Merlin not even wanting to attend, according to the ladies in the office. But that is not important," he lamented. "What  _is_  important is Merlin playing the piano—this is  _very important_  for the school, Arthur. What good is it to have a talented musician—a  _prodigy_ —attend if he will not even play the instrument he excels at?"

  
Arthur gave his father an odd sort of look that went unnoticed. Since when did it matter  _what_ they played, as long as they were attending? Just a year ago, a student had joined their ranks who was known for his saxophone playing, but was now known for his piano playing at the school. Why was Emrys so different?

  
"Now, as you know, at the end of the school year, everyone is expected to participate in one of the concerts that take place over the course of the month, otherwise they will not pass the school year." Uther explained needlessly. Of course, Arthur knew all about  _that._  "Merlin will be no exception. If anything, he will be expected to  _exceed_  usual expectations. It will then be  _your_  job, Arthur, to change his mind on things."

  
"Change his mind?" He repeated, unsure what his father could possibly mean by that.

  
"Yes. Merlin Emrys  _needs_  to play the piano at his concert at the end of the school year. And it will be  _your_  job to convince him of that."

  
"And how am I supposed to do  _that?"_

  
"You'll figure something out." Uther said, stern and steady, stubborn with his command.

  
"But—"

  
"No  _buts_ , Arthur. Merlin Emrys  _will_  play his piano by the end of the school year or there  _will_  be consequences all around, are we understood?" Uther asked, no room for discussion in his tone.

  
"Yes, father." Arthur sighed.

  
"Good. Now," He cleared his throat. "There will be a celebration of sorts tonight in light of this news—I expect you and your sister home and ready for our guests by seven-thirty at the latest. I know she's out right now, so you would do well to track her down as soon as you can. And be sure to tell her to dress  _appropriately;_  my most respectable of colleagues  _will_  be joining us." Uther turned around then, walked towards Arthur's door now that his task was complete; now that he had said what he needed to say, there were more important matters to attend to, things other than Arthur that needed doing and seeing to.

  
"Oh," He paused with his hand on the doorknob, quickly added, "And don't forget to work on your high notes." And then the door was open, he was walking through it and pulling the door shut behind him without another word to Arthur about anything else.

  
Arthur sighed and turned back around to face his music, bit his lip as he let his eyes trail over the sheet music still in front of him. If it wasn't  _Emrys_  he was supposed to charm up, he might have been more upset at recent developments than he currently was. That still left him with the question of how the hell he was supposed to get a boy he didn't even  _know_  to do something he had expressed little interest in returning to—for any reason whatsoever—to deal with. But today he had  _Flight Of The Bumblebee_  to worry about and an evening of boring old men, who looked down upon anyone not holding a first chair status or successful solo career, to look forward to.

  
The Emrys problem could wait a day or two, or, more realistically, until the beginning of the school year. It wasn't like he was likely to run into Emrys until school began, anyway.

  
The only thing that would make that evening even  _remotely_  interesting, Arthur admitted to himself as he dialed his sister's number, would be Morgana and the sort of low-cut dress she would wear that would make all the old men stutter when she gave them a half smile and asked them questions that made her seem like a fool, but amused her and Arthur nonetheless. It was too amusing, watching them squirm and stutter like that, to admit to her that maybe it  _wasn't_  proper dinner party attire.

  
He reminded her, however, at the request of their father, that she should,  _of course_ , "dress appropriately" for the event, not bothering to mention what it would be for, and he could tell through the phone that she was rolling her eyes at their father's words. She was about as thrilled as Arthur was at the sudden change of plans, as she'd had other things she had planned on doing that evening as well, but said she'd be there, nonetheless. It wasn't as though either of them had much choice.

  
After hanging up and sending off a few texts to his friends, informing them that he would have to reschedule their evening out, he tossed his phone to the side and straightened himself out once again, throwing himself into his music and focusing as much as he could on  _Flight of The Bumblebee_  for a while longer, pushing all other problems to the back of his mind as he focused, especially on the high notes and making sure they came out perfectly, worried, in some small part of him, that his father was somewhere in the house listening to every note he played and judging him on every little flaw he could hear.

  
The Emrys problem would simply have to wait.

  
*

  
His father's little "parties" really were quite dull. Already it had been three hours and Arthur was ready to call it a night. It had started with a round of some fancy wine going around the room, being served to everyone who wanted a glass and those who didn't.

  
Around eight-thirty-ish, everyone had been called into a room with insanely long tables, tablecloths and trimmings fit for royalty strewn about, and had a nice, lovely meal of… something or another. Lamb or some sort of bird that Arthur thought was too chewy but ate anyway, Morgana sitting just next to him picking at her own plate, moving everything around so that when their father glanced in their direction it seemed as though she had eaten more than the few bites that she actually had. Towards the end of the meal, she muttered under her breath to Arthur about wishing she'd thrown a little less pizza at lunch and eaten a bit more of it, though he could do little more than give her a look of confusion in return, unsure just what the hell she was talking about.

  
After the meal was finished, everyone went back to lounging about the parlor, drinking expensive wine, and talking about this or that, terrible jokes galore strung between the braggings and put-downs masked with lithe chuckles and insincere smiles, everyone dancing around the true reason for the gathering and pretending it was just something they did in the middle of the week. Everyone at the party was, in some way or another, connected to The Institute, to Uther Pendragon, so they  _all_ had to know what they were doing there, they just weren't discussing it in so many words. In Arthur's experience, they all seemed to find it in bad taste to put it into words when they were celebrating such things.

  
Just when Arthur thought he might die of boredom, Morgana finally decided to detach herself from whatever old men their father allowed to hang off her on such nights—and really, it would have been sad, pathetic even, if it wasn't so amusing—and approached Arthur as he hung off the banister of the spiraling set of stairs in the middle of the room, up high enough to look over the room yet still low enough to snag drinks and food off platters that passing servants carried as they walked by.

  
She was wearing a maroon number, long enough to trail behind her if she didn't hold it up delicately, gold trim on her plunging neckline. Her hair was pinned back, and, as usual, she had been having her twisted sort of fun sauntering up to their father's colleagues and getting much too close for comfort, her eyes hooded and warning them to try something, she  _dared them_. None of them could  _possibly_  have known that she had once broken a boy's arm when he tried feeling her up on a first date after she had repeatedly told him 'no'. They couldn't have known about that  _at all_.

  
Dressed in a tux that had seen too many of these parties, Arthur grabbed another glass of wine off a tray as a servant walked by with it, taking a sip as his sister climbed the steps until she was standing next to him.

  
"Morgana, I trust you're having your usual fun?" He asked needlessly, offering the glass to her.

  
She smirked at him, and daintily took a sip. "Have to have a  _little_  fun at these, since father thought it nice to steal me away from  _my_  fun tonight." She rolled her eyes and passed him his glass back. "What  _is_  this little get-together for, anyway? You didn't mention on the phone and you  _know_  no one's talking about it."

  
Arthur took another sip of his wine before answering. "Do you remember that Emrys prodigy kid? The piano one?" He asked, trying to sound casual enough. Because  _really_ , he still didn't know what the hell he was expected to do about him or how he would ever do what his father was asking of him. All he knew was that he was  _worrying_  about it, that perhaps the Emrys Problem couldn't seem to wait as he had wanted it to.

  
"Yes, of course." She cooed, a knowing twinkle in her eye.

  
"Well, apparently he's going to be attending The Institute this school year and well," He waved his hand around as he trailed off, explanation enough in the far-off sounds of some symphony playing and the way the room was abuzz with light conversation and an airy sort of mood that happened upon the Pendragon household whenever something  _major_  and  _exciting_  happened.

  
Morgana nodded, the movement slow, deliberate. "So he's throwing a party for Merlin and didn't even think to invite him?" She asked, almost offended at the thought as her tone gave way to something resembling familiarity.

  
"Didn't even cross his mind." He replied, looking off for a moment, to the old men and their wives across the room, mistresses snuck into the mix, as he allowed his mind to wander for half a moment to the issue at hand.

  
"Well, it's not like he would  _enjoy_  this or anything," Morgana sighed. "He was so against even attending in the first place. The only reason he's bothering to go at all is because his parents are making him." She said off-handedly.

  
Arthur's head snapped back to her as the words sunk in, she was talking about him as though… Well, as though she knew him or something. And that… that could prove to be  _very_  useful indeed.

  
"Do you—"

  
"That's where I've been all day," She interrupted, sensing where he was going with the thought. "Merls moved in a few houses down—it's a wonder dad doesn't know about that yet." She mused.

  
"Yes, but  _how_ —"

  
"His best friend moved into Gwaine's dorm and he introduced us—Gwaine, Gwen, Percy, and I—to him. We spent all afternoon at his house. When I left, the others were still there, but I suspect they've all left by now—it  _is_  rather late. I had to leave early because of all  _this_ , but I promised him I would be back in the morning." She explained, but Arthur wasn't listening anymore, he was too stuck on  _this—_ on  _Merlin Emrys_  living  _doors_  down from him. Living on the same block, in the same neighborhood.

  
What was more, his sister and  _friends_  had met him—how could they not have told him? Texted him to come over and meet him? This—this was the solution to his problem! He would drop by, he would introduce himself as a friendly neighbor—he didn't have to wait for school to start, he could begin with whatever he needed to do, well,  _now._  His father wouldn't mind him ducking out early if it was for something like  _this,_ he was sure...

  
"Which house does he live in?" He asked, trying to keep his voice level.

  
"Merlin? Why do you—oh don't tell me, Arthur." She smirked, cutting herself off as she stole his wine glass from him for another sip.

  
"Don't tell you what?" He asked, his tone tired and distracted, if she just told him what he needed to know—

  
"That you've still got a little thing for him—after all these years?"

  
He gave her an offended sort of look. "I  _never_ —"

  
"Don't play coy with  _me_ , Arthur Pendragon." She told him sharply. "I was there when you saw him play, I saw how hypnotized you were, that look you had in your eyes, like you would never see anything as amazing as him ever again. For God sake, Arthur, you've still got his poster hanging in your bedroom!" She exclaimed, amusement playing across her face.

  
"He was an amazing musician, Morgana. You can't deny that!" He interjected on his own behalf, cheeks flushed with warmth as he snatched his glass back from her.

  
"Yes, and I can appreciate that as well," She conceded. "But _I_  never looked at him like I was in love or anything. _I_  don't have his picture hanging up in my bedroom." She teased.

  
"I was  _never '_ in love' with him, Morg. I just… I liked the way he played, that's all." He said, the steam slowly draining from him. He didn't need to defend himself to her. There was no shame in being in love with someone like Merlin Emrys, he just... had never been—he had never  _known_  him, how could he have ever been  _in love_  with him?

  
"You had stars in your eyes for a week straight after we saw him live! And, when you found out he was retiring, you were  _crushed_ —"

  
"Half the world's population felt the exact same way, in case you're forgetting." He growled at her.

  
He didn't need this—didn't need to stand here and take this from  _Morgana_ , of all people. He didn't need her accusing him of having  _feelings_  for people he had never even met to begin with, people he now had to somehow trick or manipulate into doing what his father wanted them to do. He didn't need to, he didn't  _have_  to.

  
So he turned around on his heel, the intention of climbing the stairs and getting far, far away from her in the forefront of his mind because shut up, he was never in love with Merlin Emrys—he had never even  _met_  the guy. Maybe a tiny crush, for just a moment, because  _damnit_  he did have really nice blue eyes and his ears were annoyingly large and endearing and his stupid cheekbones haunted his dreams for weeks on end when he thought about them too much, but  _shut up_ , because that was in the past and the only thing he felt for Merlin Emrys right now was  _annoyance_  for sparking such an inner debate to begin with.

_  
Stupid prodigy._

  
"I can introduce you." Morgana called after him in a sing-song sort of voice after he was a few stairs up.

  
He paused, refusing to let his shoulders slump in defeat. "I don't think he'll mind—Will just brought us all over without so much as a text to warn him and he warmed up to us as soon as he saw the food. And I'm sure Gwen being  _totally_  besotted with him didn't hurt matters either." She added fondly, thoughtfully.

  
Arthur brought his eyebrows together in confusion for a moment, wondering what the hell she was talking about—Food? Gwen being besotted?  _What?_  She wasn't making a whole lot of sense tonight, was she?—before deciding it didn't matter. All he needed to do was get him to play his piano by the end of the school year—he didn't need to get…  _Attached_  or anything. He just needed him to—oh God, this sounded like the beginning of a terrible romantic comedy that ended with him slowly falling in love, and Merlin  _somehow_  finding out his true, initial intentions and blah blah  _blah_. Morgana really did need to stop making him watch those damn things, they were starting to intrude upon his thoughts now.

  
"I  _really_  do hate you sometimes, you know that?" He sighed, turning back around to face her, descending the stairs until he was standing next to her again.

  
"And yet, somehow, I still love you." She replied with a smile.

  
"Oh God." He shook his head. "Fine—can you… can you really do it? Introduce me to him?" He asked, knowing he would soon come to regret such words ever leaving his mouth.

  
"Sure. Well, I'll ask him first—I'm sure he'll appreciate being  _asked_. But, do me a favor when I  _do_  introduce you?" Her eyes softened now, something  _different_ , and unlike the Morgana that usually paid a visit to such evenings in, dancing across her face, something that resembled concern and affection.

  
"What?"

  
"Try to keep it in your pants, Arthur? He's a good person, and I really don't want to see him hurt."

  
"You're introducing me as a  _friend_ , Morgana, not someone who wants to shag his brains out." Arthur rolled his eyes, feeling himself bristle at her accusatory tone.

  
"Are you sure about that?" She asked, the softness fading from her and her eyes twinkling with laughter as Arthur glared at her. It hit him then, that perhaps their father's colleagues weren't the only ones she liked to toy with to entertain herself at this sort of thing.

  
He shook his head and passed her his almost empty glass, descended the rest of the stairs and allowed himself to get lost in the crowds, letting the dull hum of boring conversation around him take over and distract him from what he needed to do and  _how_  he was going to do it.

  
*

* * *

 


	5. Scent Marked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you scent marking things in my house, Morgana? Is that why it smelled so weird after you left or was that just your perfume?"

* * *

 

*

  
When Morgana said she would be over first thing in the morning, she had obviously  _meant_  "first thing in the morning." Merlin had only been up for  _maybe_  fifteen minutes when that godforsaken doorbell went off, drawing him down from his bedroom to make whoever was there  _stop_  pushing that damned button—he would really have to see about getting a new one put in, because if he had to hear that  _ding-ding-ding-ding **-dong**_  every time someone came over, he was afraid he might go mad or strangle someone.

  
He pulled the door open, and was met with the sight of Morgana, her eyes trailing over him as she quirked an eyebrow, a smirk of sorts on her face as she took in his sleep disheveled hair, his rumpled pajamas, and a wild sort of look in his eyes that he was often told made him look quite mad indeed. And, of course, though it was barely past six something, she was completely put-together, her hair drawn up in a messy bun, her make-up perfect, shorts and blouse matchy and bubbly and too perfect for so early in the day.

  
"Good morning, Merlin." She said, pushing past him when he just gave her a dumb-founded sort of look.

  
"'Morning, Morg." He yawned, pushing the door shut as he trailed after her to the kitchen, a sense of déjà vu hitting him with a smile as the events of the previous day came back to him momentarily. "What are you—"

  
"I promised to make sure you had a proper breakfast today," She reminded him, pulling out some odds and ends, utensils and food and skillets and pans from around his kitchen. "Can't have you wasting away to nothing before school starts, now can we?" She asked, teasing as she pointed him to the counter to take a seat.

  
"I thought I'd just have some cereal or something." He told her, obeying her anyway.

  
"Which is  _exactly_  why I am here, Merlin. You can't live off cereal and tea any more than you can pizza and tea." She told him, rolling her eyes as she went about cracking a few eggs into a bowl, her movements quick and measured. "Now, I'm not the best cook in the world, but I think I can whip us up something that is a  _bit_  more than just cereal and scones."

  
"And what are you going to do about me once school starts and you move into your dorm? Can't very well stop me from eating cereal and tea then, now can you?" He asked, eyebrows raised on his forehead and climbing into his sleepy hair.

  
She gave a sort of smirk over her shoulder as she turned on his stove and set to putting something or another in a skillet.

  
"Oh, I have my ways, Emrys. I have my ways." She promised him, turning her attention back to the food.

  
He laughed and rolled his eyes playfully. Honestly, he was grateful that she was taking the time to make him something, that she was worried about him, but he didn't feel right about this, about someone he just met being  _so_  worried about his well-being. Why  _was_  she, anyway? They'd only just met and here she was, at six-thirty in the morning, making him breakfast and worrying about him and what he ate, whether he had a "proper" breakfast or not. It was… an odd sort of feeling. His mother had worried about him enough, yes, and she made sure he ate adequate meals and she loved him—more than anyone else in the world, she loved him and she wanted the best for him and to make sure he was well taken care of and everything…

  
But Morgana wasn't his mother. She was his friend. And he didn't know—

  
"Why don't you go change while I do this?" Morgana suggested. "Shouldn't be too long until it's done."

  
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" He asked, feigning insult.

  
She snorted at him, turned around and held a spatula out towards him. "I have  _plans_  for us after breakfast, and I don't want to have to wait for you to fix your hair to get started with them. So go fix all that and, by the time you're done, the food will be, too." She told him.

  
He ran a lazy hand through his hair and shot her an amused sort of look, but pushed off the bar stool he was sitting on and dragged himself back up the stairs anyway, spending at least twenty minutes showering and putting on fresh clothes, trying to tame his unruly hair before giving it up and merely ruffling it and trudging back down the stairs to the most amazing sort of smells swirling about. It didn't smell like his parents' house had most mornings, but there was something amazing about it, something spectacularly  _his_  that it put a spring in his step that he hardly recognized as he came back down to the kitchen, met with the sight of Morgana placing two plates of food and two cups of tea on the counter, and pulling a bar stool around the counter and taking a seat just across from where Merlin had previously been.

  
"Why don't you just make me eat at the table while you're at it?" He teased as he took his seat, looked down to the plate she had put before his seat. There were scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes—nothing too fancy, but it looked  _delicious_. Better than cold cereal, at least.

  
"I like the counter better." She told him, nudging the syrup and butter towards him as she cut into one of her pancakes. "Now, tuck in—before it gets cold."

  
He nodded and picked up his utensils, buttering up his pancakes and bathing them in syrup, the bacon catching the excess in the most glorious sort of way. For some time, they just sat, eating in a comfortable silence Merlin had never really known before, much too interested in the amazing experience his palate was having to be too concerned with anything else. How the hell had she even been able to say with a straight face that she wasn't that good of a cook? he wondered to himself at some point.

  
Somewhere in the middle of the meal, Merlin recalled her words from before about having plans for him and, after he swallowed a bit of bacon covered in syrup, dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, he asked, "What sort of plans do you have for me, exactly?" As though they had just been talking about it not two minutes ago.

  
Morgana swallowed, chased it down with a bit of tea before answering. "Well, if you don't have any other plans today, I was wondering if you would mind meeting my brother and a few other people?" She asked, giving him a wondering sort of look.

  
Merlin nodded and took a long sip of his tea to allow himself an extra moment to mull it over. On the one hand, he had been hoping to get some more practice in that day, since he had missed out on it the previous day due to, well, Morgana and her friends. But, on the other… He  _was_  curious as to what Morgana's brother could  _possibly_  be like. And more of their friends… Well, he was sure they were all just as wonderful as the others had been. And of course, he  _did_  owe her for breakfast…

  
"I'd love to meet your brother, Morgana," He told her, placing his cup back on the counter. "And, uhm, who else did you have in mind, exactly?"

  
"Oh just a few people," She promised. "Gwen's baby brother Elyan, my brother's best friend Leon, and maybe Mithian, if she's not too busy. I was thinking we could go out to the furniture shop by the Avalon Theatre and wherever else to get you whatever you still need, and meet them here for lunch? You can't spend the rest of break cooped up in here, after all." She told him.

  
He rolled his eyes but nodded in agreement anyway, then finished his breakfast, chewing each bite thoughtfully, carefully, his pulse doing an odd sort of racing thing with the prospect of meeting more people. He was sure there was nothing in the world wrong with her brother or their friends, but… Perhaps  _this_  was why Will hadn't bothered to tell him beforehand that he was bringing people over, he knew how anxious it would make him, how nervous he would be.

  
Eventually, they came to the end of the meal, and Merlin cleared away the dishes, rolling up his sleeves and washing them while Morgana went off to make a few phone calls.

  
By the time she came back to the room, Merlin was shutting the now dry dishes back up in the cabinet and still trying to talk himself into calming down. Because really, he was only meeting a handful of people and if he was  _this_  nervous about it, how would he take his first day of school when there would be, what, thousands of people all about, most of them total strangers to him but, more likely than not, already knowing his name?

  
"Are you ready to go, Mer?" She asked, cocking her head slightly with an inviting enough sort of eyebrow quirk.

  
"Erm, just about. Let me go grab my phone and keys and then we can be off." He told her, turning about and trailing off upstairs to grab said items and collect himself for a moment—he really was being silly, and anyway, he wouldn't even be meeting them for  _hours_  now—before going back down to her with half a smile on his face, telling her he was ready to go now.

  
She gave him a worried sort of look, "Are you sure, Merlin? We don't have to go if you don't want to. We can—"

  
"It's fine, Gana." He assured her. "I can't spend the rest of break cooped up in here, right? And anyway, if Gwaine only gets to sit somewhere after you've gone home, he might start getting upset." He said, mock horror at the thought twisting his face with amusement.

  
Morgana gave him an equally horrified look, mock out-rage painting her features as she said, her hand clasped to her heart to complete the act, "He sat in  _my chair_  after I left? Oh, I will be having words with  _that man_..."

  
"Sorry,  _your_  chair? And here I thought it was mine." He shook his head as he guided her out the front door, locked it behind him and looked to her for where to go next.

  
"Don't be silly, Merlin; I claimed it yesterday when I sat down to eat lunch in it."

  
"You  _claimed_  it? Are you scent marking things in my house, Morgana? Is that why it smelled so weird after you left or was that just your perfume?"

  
"You should be nicer to me, Merlin Emrys." Morgana laughed, shaking her head as they trailed down the porch stairs.

  
"And why's that?"

  
"Because, if you're not, this school year is going to be  _very_  unpleasant for you." She promised, grinning over her shoulder to let him know she was joking.

  
He smiled at her and shook his head, falling into step beside her as she led him down the street and to her car, a dark red beauty that even  _Merlin_ , who knew  _nothing_  about cars, could appreciate.

  
They got into the car in silence, and when it purred to life, she switched the air conditioning on and told Merlin he could mess with the radio if he wanted to as she pulled away from the curb. So he did; not because he  _wanted_  to, but because he hadn't played his violin in going on twenty-four hours now and he felt like if he didn't get some sort of music in him  _soon_ , he would explode.

  
So he flipped through the stations absent-mindedly, the songs melting into his skin and soothing something within him that only music could ever seem to do, never paying attention to any one for too long until he noticed, when he hit a particularly pop-y song, that Morgana was tapping her nails on the steering wheel. The lyrics were terrible and it was all a bit  _much_  for Merlin's taste, but he kept it on the station anyway, allowing himself to get lost in the melody and forget the lyrics were even a  _thing_  until the song ended and he found his eyes had slipped closed with all of it, in the way they always seemed to when he was concentrating too hard, when he was too lost in it all and gave himself over completely to the music.

  
"Everything okay, Merlin?" Morgana asked, turning the radio down as some ad started to play in place of the music.

  
He opened his eyes and shook his head, turned slightly to give her a look, coming out of his daze to find her eyes splitting themselves between the road in front of her and him, worry written in her features.

  
"Yeah, just... lost in the music—you know how it is." He shrugged to finish off the thought, and, though she nodded in understanding, Merlin  _did_  wonder, for half a moment, if she  _truly_  knew how it was or if it was just him—if it was  _always_  just him, if there was something wrong with him and nothing he did was normal.

  
They pulled into the parking lot of the furniture shop then, however, and Morgana mentioned something, as the got out and began towards the glass doors that had signs and numbers all over them indicating an end-of-summer sale coming up, about Gwaine coming by—because, he had said, if  _he_  was going to be the one that have to sit in whatever they were getting, he at least wanted to be able to pick out the color—and he forgot about everything else. Because it didn't matter, did it? Not right now. Not really.

  
*

* * *

 


	6. He's Not Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin was a child prodigy, famous the world over for his piano playing, but gave it all up at the tender age of 16. Years later, he finds himself enrolled in a prodigious school for the musically gifted. And Arthur... All Arthur wanted to do was keep his father happy, but that's easier said than done when he finds himself falling for the stupid prodigy.
> 
> "Except for my bedroom. We're not turning my bedroom into a clubhouse."

* * *

 

*

  
Arthur  _really_  tried to put it out of his mind—the whole Emrys Problem. He tried to forget about it like an awful sort of dream that he could leave tangled in his sheets and laying on his pillow case. He really fucking  _tried._

  
But then Morgana called him—called him from  _inside Emrys' house_ , telling him that he could come over for lunch that afternoon with Leon, Elyan, and Mithian, maybe, if she could make it—and it wasn't a dream anymore. It wasn't something be left in his sheets and forgotten about, it was a real problem that he was going to have to deal with around lunchtime when he was introduced to him.

 _  
Just fucking great_.

  
*

  
They spent longer than Merlin would have liked at the furniture shop. And it was  _Gwaine's_  fault. He  _had_  come by, showed up fifteen minutes after Morgana and Merlin had arrived—after they'd spent fifteen minutes wandering around and discussing what else he would need for his house and different odds and ends that felt a bit too  _domestic_  to be discussing with a girl he'd known for less than a day—and asked if they had picked anything out yet. When Merlin said he hadn't, told him he could just pick out whatever if he wanted to—might as well, since Morgana was going around scent-marking things, he had said with a smirk, ducking out of the way of her glare—he had come to life, trying out  _every_  chair and couch there  _was_  in the place—and it was a  _big_  shop.

  
Okay, so,  _maybe_  it was more Merlin's fault than anything, but, he had been trying to be  _nice._

  
Eventually, Gwaine had settled on some green monstrosity that Merlin rather disliked, but Gwaine  _loved it,_  so he asked for it to be delivered first thing the following morning with a couple tables and a few other things that Morgana  _insisted_  he needed to flesh out his decor. If she thought the first floor needed  _fleshing out_ , he could only imagine what she would make him buy when she saw the second floor...

  
They picked up lunch on the way back to Merlin's—just some burgers and fries and stuff from a fast food place—and when they got back to Merlin's, Morgana pulled up into his driveway slowly, leaving enough room for Gwaine to pull up behind her.

  
The _first thing_  Merlin saw when they pulled up was a small group of people waiting on his front porch, a few guys and a girl. And, of course, he recognized none of them.

  
Gwaine pulled up just behind them and was out of his car and sauntering up to Merlin and Morgana and helping them out with the food before Merlin could process how nervous he might have been at the prospect of meeting  _more_  new people. He had been nervous that morning, but, after a morning of  _shopping_ , he couldn't find it in him to allow his stomach to knot up at the thought anymore. What he  _really_  wanted to do was collapse with his violin already—that piece he had started composing was calling out for him, he could  _feel_  the notes boiling in his veins, trying to claw their way out of him already—but he had already promised Morgana he would do this, so...

  
He couldn't help but wonder, then, as he slammed Morgana's car door shut, which one of the three guys was her brother. The darker-skinned one was obviously Gwen's brother Elyan—he had the same smile and everything—but the other two... well, it was anyone's guess, really. One had blond hair that caught the sun in the most breath-taking sort of way and the other curly hair that looked like it was a hassle to have to deal with most days.

  
For some reason, he was _sure_ it was the blond one, though he really looked  _nothing_  like Morgana.

  
The girl, who was sitting with her legs crossed over each other as she hung off the edge of the porch, was laughing with the boys about something or another, leaning into the boy with curly hair, whom he suspected to be Leon, as though they were a couple.

  
"Ah, the smell of greasy goodness on a summer afternoon—is there anything closer to Heaven?" Gwaine asked, taking a bag of food from Merlin and nudging him playfully, reassuringly when he followed his sight to the people on his porch.

  
"You said the same thing about that gin you had last weekend." Morgana said, shaking her head with laughter and leading them towards the porch.

  
"That was some good gin!" Gwaine cried out, almost indignantly.

  
Merlin laughed and walked with him and Morgana up the porch steps, squirming, slightly, under the watchful eyes of the four people on his porch, all of them watching with curiosity and wonderment as they stood up, the girl brushing dirt off the bottom of her shorts and standing almost  _gracefull_ y next to the boys, making them look like peasants in the presence of a princess—all except the blond one, who, okay, sort of had a royal air about him. He was probably  _most definitely_  Morgana's brother.

  
"Mithian, you made it!" Morgana exclaimed, beaming at the girl.

  
She, Mithian, smiled back at Morgana. "Of course I did—Gwen's been talking non-stop about  _him_  since last night; I  _had_  to meet him in person." She said, nodding in Merlin's direction as he came up the stairs and, trying to hide his blush at her comment, pulled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

  
"Our little Guinevere is  _quite_  besotted with you, Merlin." Gwaine chuckled, making Merlin snort in response.

  
"Believe me, Gwaine," he shook his head and pushed the door open, nodding for them all to go in ahead of him. "She'll get over it as soon as she gets to know me better."

  
"Ah, you don't know Gwen, if that's what you think." The boy he assumed to be Gwen's brother said as he walked past him. "She only sees the best in people. And you? Well, she seems to see the  _very_ best in you."

  
Merlin chuckled nervously and shook his head as the others all wandered in in front of him, following Morgana and Gwaine as they led them to the kitchen, which was apparently going to be the first stop they always made when they entered his house.

  
By the time Merlin kicked the door shut behind himself and made his way to the kitchen, Morgana and Gwaine had the food out of the bags and had plates pulled out of the cabinets, the kettle on to boil, and were telling the others to help themselves as Merlin sat the rest of the food down and emptied it onto the table as well, trying to ignore, for the moment, the blond boy and his intense, gauging gaze that was focused on him, something of a glare thinly veiled as he got his food and brushed past him.

  
Just as the previous day, only with different people, they all got their food and made their way to the living room as soon as the tea was ready, little being said until they were settled in with their food.

  
"Don't sit in the chair closest to the couch," Merlin had told the others, a grin on his face as he caught Morgana's glare out of the side of his eye. "Morgana scent marked it."

  
"Would you stop telling people I urinated on your furniture?" She had demanded, her tone harsh but her features soft as she rolled her eyes at him and sat in her chair anyway.

  
"You're the one who said you claimed it when you sat down—what the hell was I supposed to think?" He had asked, amusement on his face.

  
She had rolled her eyes again and popped a fry into her mouth, the grin on her face giving way to her ruse of agitation.

  
Just as they had the previous day, they ate in laughter and amusement, the introductions taking place over the course of the meal between stories and jokes, easing Merlin into everything, into knowing everyone, and, as a result, soothing whatever nerves seemed to pop up between getting the food inside and sitting down.

  
There was Mithian, who was sitting in the chair next to Morgana, graceful in everything that she did, though, Merlin came to find out, she wasn't as pretentious as she looked; rather the opposite: she got on with  _everyone,_  she was charming and a well-rounded, beautiful girl whom Merlin was  _sure_  was in love with Leon, who was sitting across the room from her, by the time they were half-way through the meal.

  
And Leon, of course, was the one with the curly hair. He was good natured enough and was Morgana's brother's best friend. When he actually managed to tear his eyes off Mithian for any length of time, he was a good addition to the conversation, rolling his eyes at the stupid jokes and adding his own disbelief and sarcasm when necessary.

  
Elyan, the darker skinned boy whom Merlin had already known was Gwen's younger brother, was sitting on the couch between Merlin and Arthur. He was reserved but loyal, loosening up with the conversation as Merlin felt himself doing, not afraid to rag on anyone in the room, but still one of the first to come to someone's defense when necessary. He could  _definitely_  see the family resemblance.

  
And then there was  _Arthur._ Morgana's baby brother.

  
And she hadn't been lying when she said he was full of himself. He was arrogant, and full of teasings,  _insults,_  that differed vastly from everyone else's, his blond hair something of an abnormality when the sun came through the window and hit it  _just so_. He had blue eyes and looked at Merlin like  _he_  was something of an abnormality himself; his greeting had been a curt nod in his direction and an aloof, almost  _cold,_  "Emrys," when Morgana had introduced them properly. And he hardly talked to him, other than to roll his eyes and say something under-cutting and sarcastic.

  
God, he was so fucking aggravating. Merlin really didn't see the family resemblance there  _at all._

  
After they finished their food, Gwaine, who was, once again, on the floor, stood up to stretch.

  
"You know, I've been thinking, Merlin," He began.

  
"There's a first." Arthur snorted.

  
Merlin rolled his eyes and turned to Gwaine, trying to pretend he hadn't heard him. "Yeah?" He said, picking up his cup and draining the rest of his tea.

  
"Yeah, _and_ , even with the new furniture you bought today, there really isn't going to be enough room in here for everyone—like,  _everyone_. Us, Gwen, Will, Percy, and whoever else—what if we all want to hang out here at the same time? Not enough chairs or anything in here.

  
"So I think we need somewhere else to set up, a different room or something to turn into our secret clubhouse." He said, his eyes teasing and shining with laughter and thought

  
Merlin nodded with amusement and agreement. "Fine, house is plenty big; why don't you go explore and let me know if anything else looks good enough—except for my bedroom. We're not turning my bedroom into a clubhouse."

  
"Aw, are you sure? I know  _quite_  a few people who might be interested in  _that_  kind of clubhouse..."

  
"Shut up, and go find your secret clubhouse." Morgana rolled her eyes at him, threw a pillow at him for good measure.

  
"Fine, going." He grinned, turning about to explore the rest of the first floor, and then, probably, the second floor. And, knowing what he did about Gwaine so far, Merlin was  _sure_  he was going to check out his bedroom, anyway, just for the hell of it.

  
"Don't break anything! And hands off the sheet music, Gwaine; I'm still working on some of that!" Merlin called after him before he could get too far out of sight.

  
Gwaine grumbled something complacent yet displeased back and continued on, ducking through a door before Merlin could lay out any more ground rules. There weren't any more—don't touch the piano, don't break any of the instruments, and don't destroy the sheet music, were pretty much all the rules he had—but Gwaine didn't know that yet.

  
"So you still compose?" Mithian asked, tucking herself into the chair more comfortably now that she had finished eating.

  
Merlin turned to her and nodded slowly, tapping out a rhythm on the arm of the couch without thought. "Yeah, of course—why wouldn't I?"

  
"Well, you retired, so everyone always just assumed..." Leon shrugged, trailing off with the thought.

  
"I retired from the  _piano_ , not music itself. I couldn't  _function_  if I quit music altogether." He shook his head, half amused with the admission, though it... wasn't exactly funny, not when he felt like he would go out of his mind if he didn't touch an instrument  _now_ , not when it felt like there was something within him that wanted to claw and rip its way out through notes and melodies. Not when there wasn't anything funny about it at all.

  
"How long'd it take you to figure  _that one_ out?" Arthur asked, his tone only kind of sharp with sarcasm.

  
"About a month after my retirement. Not even an  _entire_  month, either." He answered truthfully, because, prat or not, it was a legitimate enough question; Merlin could tell from the way Arthur peaked around Elyan to get a better look at him after he asked the question that he  _genuinely_  wanted to know, in his own way.

  
"So—what, you retired and what have you been doing these past few years?" He asked, tone almost accusing now. "Learning the violin and all those other instruments of yours and what else? Just sort of...  _hanging out?_ "

  
And he seemed genuinely... Disappointed, perhaps? Upset with Merlin for some reason that he couldn't quite place. A bit outraged, maybe? What the hell was his problem with Merlin, anyway? The  _entire_  time he'd been there, he had been acting like he was bored with Merlin, like everything he said was stupid and misinformed and he was  _so much_   _better_  than him...

  
" _Arthur!_ " Morgana hissed at him, her eyes narrow and sharp as she glared at him.

  
Arthur rolled his eyes at her but didn't withdraw the questions.

  
"It's fine, Gana." Merlin told her. "And hey," He turned to Arthur, twisting around Elyan to do so. "How the hell did you even know about the other instruments? The violin I get, but the only people who know about the other instruments are—"

  
"You don't know?" Elyan interrupted, his face showing his own surprise at the current twist of things.

  
"Know what?"

  
"Arthur's father—Uther Pendragon—runs the school. He probably mentioned it to him; he would know about that sort of thing." Leon told him.

  
Merlin nodded, bit his lip in thought and confusion and turned to Morgana. "But I thought you were Le—"

  
"Different fathers; we're only half-siblings. But Uther raised us both after our mum died." Arthur cut in, tone tired and aggravated with him.

  
"Oh, I get it now," Merlin nodded, understanding clicking within. "Why you're being such an arrogant prat—It's the Pendragon blood, right? I thought it was weird you and Morgana were  _actually_  related, but I get it now. Really."

  
"And what the  _hell_  do you even know about Pen—"

  
"Oh I've met your father, Pendragon." Merlin interrupted, coming to the end of his rope with Arthur and his shit. "And believe me:  _I get it._ "

  
"I can't believe you! I thought you were lazy, I thought you were full of yourself, but I  _never_  thought—"

 _  
"_ _Lazy? Full of_   _myself?"_ Merlin demanded, standing up when it got to be too much trouble to keep having to duck around Elyan—and poor Elyan, he hadn't asked to be caught in the middle of their argument, had he? "This whole damn afternoon you have been  _nothing_  but—"

  
"Oh spare me, Emrys!" Arthur hissed, pushing off the couch to stand in front of him, to shout in his face. And Merlin got the impression, from the look of shock on his face when Merlin didn't back down, that people didn't stand up to him like this, that they just allowed him to get up in their face and took his shouting. Which was probably why he was so damn full of himself.

  
"Bite me, Pendragon!" Merlin hissed back, eyes narrowed.

  
"Sod off, you lazy son of a—"

  
"Oy, Merlin, I think I've found—Erm," Gwaine paused as he re-entered the living room, just as silent as everyone else in the room was. Merlin paid him little mind, his glare too focused on Arthur and not looking away first. No way, he would not  _fucking_  grant him that victory, not in his own living room.

  
"What did I miss?" Gwaine asked.

  
"Just  _Pendragon_  being a royal pain in the ass!" Merlin hissed.

  
"More like  _Emrys_  being an insufferable, self-loathing pansy!"

  
"Oh why don't you go—"

  
"That is  _enough,_  you two!" Morgana shouted, standing from her chair like it was the most inconvenient thing she ever had to do.

  
She grabbed Arthur's ear and yanked him away from Merlin and then, for good measure, whacked him on the back of the head. She got close enough to do the same to Merlin, the stinging on the back of his head nothing compared to the anger in his veins,  _begging_  to be let out, itching to scratch itself down onto a music staff, like,  _now._

  
"Acting like children—I really can't believe you two!" She hissed, shoving Arthur back down to his spot on the couch. "And I expected more from you, Merlin." She said when she turned her attention to him. "Arthur acts like a child all the time, I'm used to it, but you're supposed to be better than all this; I expect you to be above such petty, childish squabbling." She told him, disappointment dripping from her every word.

  
He gave her a look, his cheeks flushed, though whether it was from embarrassment or the anger he was still feeling, he couldn't be sure.

  
"Sorry." He said, more to Morgana than Arthur.

  
Then he turned to Gwaine, who was still just standing there, amused and a bit confused, waiting for what seemed to be either Merlin's attention or for them to start going at it again. "Did you find something, then?" He asked him, clearing his throat of his anger.

  
"Erm, yeah." He said, nodding enthusiastically. "There's this room back here, there's only a few chairs and a couch, but it's big enough that I think we can get some more stuff in it and it's—well, come see for yourself." He shrugged and nodded back towards where he had just come from.

  
Merlin let out a breath, and cast another glare at Arthur just for the hell of it, before walking around the couch and falling behind Gwaine as he led him down a hall he vaguely recalled trailing down with Will just the other day. The walls had the same vintage wallpaper as most of the house did and were bare, doors on all sides making him wonder just how much room his parents thought he would actually  _need._

  
Gwaine led him through an open door, then, and into a room he didn't remember from the other day at all. It was possibly the biggest room in the house, and the walls were an ugly sort of off-white color, automatically making it different from the rest of the rooms he recalled seeing, and the floor had thin, lime green carpeting—another abnormality that Merlin thought was interesting, to say the least. There was a leather couch against the back wall, a square table in the far corner of the room, and a couple of recliners, leaving the majority of the room empty, begging to be filled with  _something—_ with life, with music, with  _things,_  Merlin didn't entirely  _know_. But he knew that Gwaine had made a wise selection, had called his attention to a room he might never have stepped foot into again had it not been for him.

  
"What do you think?" Gwaine asked, grinning with pride at his find.

  
Merlin nodded, hands resting on his hips. "Yeah, great. This is  _awesome,_  Gwaine."

  
"Yeah, I thought so." He nodded as well, giving Merlin another moment to mull over the room before he, finally, asked, "So what was that with you and Arthur? What were you two shouting about?"

  
Merlin sighed and shook his head, hands falling from his hips. "I don't  _know_ , he—is he always that...  _insufferable_?" He asked, exasperated with the very question.

  
Gwaine snorted. "Oh, you have _no idea._ But, once you get passed it... Well, he's not always that bad. But I think you're the first person to have a go at him like that so soon after meeting him. Usually, it takes a month or two to get so worked up you can hardly stand him any more. I think you've broken a record of some sort."

  
"Lucky me." Merlin muttered sarcastically, grinning at Gwaine's attempts to cheer him up. He could feel his anger slowly draining from him, but it wasn't quickly enough; if he saw Arthur again right now, if he said anything sarcastic to him right now, he would probably have another go at him, might even take a swing at him, and, well, Arthur looked like he could make it hurt a hell of a lot more for Merlin than Merlin could for him.

  
So he let out another sigh and crossed the room, swung himself up on to the couch and crossed his legs over each other, taking in a stale breath; the window just behind him and the couch would need to be opened to air the room out before they did anything with it, but, for now, the stale air was fine in his lungs, leaving him with a a musty sort of taste in his mouth as he nodded for Gwaine to take a seat on one of the chairs. He obeyed, settling in nicely, and turned to Merlin, eyebrow raised in silent wondering until he started talking again.

  
"So. What should we fill the clubhouse with?"

  
*

  
"What the  _hell_ is wrong with you?" Morgana demanded of Arthur once Merlin and Gwaine were out of earshot.

  
He glared at her, crossed his arms, and sunk down on the couch. If she wanted to accuse him of acting like a child, then maybe that's what he would do.

  
At his lack of response, she smacked him upside the head again and glared at him, crossing her own arms and demanding an answer of him without so much as another word.

  
He sighed and sat up slightly. "He started it." He grumbled, his only defense which, okay, was the furthest from the truth he could possibly get at the moment, but it was all he could give her.

  
He had decided that morning, after talking to Morgana and making plans with Leon and Elyan to hang out before they needed to be at Emrys' place, that he would at least  _try_  to be pleasant with Emrys. He would try to get on his good side—people were more likely to cooperate with you if they actually  _liked you_ , after all—and be his friend. No matter how hard he made it, Arthur was going to  _try,_  at least.

  
But then he had met him and yeah, okay, he  _seemed_  like a good guy, but, there was something about him, something that Arthur couldn't quite place, something that made Arthur want to piss him off.

  
There was no logical explanation for it, he just... had felt so fucking exhilarated when Emrys was yelling at him like that, when they were in each other's faces like that, hating each other beyond any sort of explanation. None of his other friends—okay, Emrys was  _so not his friend_  at this point—would yell at him like that. They all got pissed off enough at him, all had their go at him every now and then, but... not even  _Morgana_  got in his face like that when they were arguing. It shouldn't have turned him on so much, but... perhaps Morgana had been  _right_  in what she had said last night...

  
"No, he didn't,  _you_  did. You've been acting like a spoiled child all afternoon, Arthur, and I don't even understand  _why_ _—you_  wanted to meet him!"  _  
_

  
"Yeah, I did, but, Morgana, he—"

  
"No  _buts_ , Arthur." She interrupted, shaking her head at him. "Honestly. What would Uther say if he—"

  
"Father is the whole reason I  _wanted_  to meet him, Morgana." Arthur told her then, exasperated and sick of her shouting at him already. Honestly, it was bad enough he would have to somehow undo all the damage he had just caused with Emrys, he didn't need the added burden of Morgana being pissed off at him as well.

  
"What do you mean?" She asked in a level, cold voice, her eyes narrowed at him.

  
Elyan slid over on the couch then, probably wanting to be as far out of Morgana's line of fire as he could manage in that moment; and he didn't blame him, if she didn't have him pinned to the spot with that death glare of hers, Arthur would have left already, gotten as far away from her as he could, because she was fucking  _scary_  when she was pissed off.

  
"Nothing." He seethed, adverting his eyes, wondering if Mithian or Leon would save him from her at least. But Leon, his supposed _best friend_ , shook his head at him like he had gone mad, which, yeah, smart decision; you didn't piss off Morgana if you could help it. And he couldn't really expect  _Mithian_  to take his side over his sister's; she was closer to Morgana than to him, after all.

  
"Arthur Pendragon, tell me _right now_ , or I swear to God the  _entire school_  will know what an Emrys fanboy you are before the year even  _begins."_ She threatened.

  
Arthur sighed, agitated with the threat—she would do it, too, just to teach him a lesson—and then gave her his attention back. He chanced a glance to where Merlin had disappeared to a few moments ago,  _sure_  that they would walk back through the doorway any moment now, but then looked back to Morgana; she wasn't going to let this drop now—not now that he had opened his big mouth about it... _  
_

  
"Fine, Jesus, Morgana, I'll tell you." He said through gritted teeth. "But do not breathe a _word_  of this to Emrys—any of you—got it?" He asked, looking to the others in turn, waiting for their vague promises of silence on the subject before going into all the details of the previous day, of everything his father had said to him when he stopped by during his practice session, of all that he had asked of him.

  
And saying it out loud, admitting, to some of his closest friends, what he was trying to do... It made his stomach twist, made him feel like the biggest jerk in the world, but...

  
" _I can't_   _fucking believe you!"_ Morgana hissed at him when he had finished, anger flashing in her eyes as she tried to keep her voice down so Gwaine and Merlin—what the hell were they even doing that was taking so long, anyway?—wouldn't hear her. He adverted his eyes, ashamed with the admission now, because  _God,_  it was a terrible thing to do, wasn't it?

  
"That's pretty shitty, Arthur." Leon told him, his voice neutral, not quite as offended as Morgana was.

  
"Terrible, actually." Mithian shook her head.

  
"You hardly even know him and you're really willing to use him like that?" Elyan asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

  
"I fucking  _know,_  okay?" He asked, clenching his fists in his lap. "I  _know_ , but what else can I do? Father—"

  
"God,  _screw_  Uther, Arthur!" Morgana shook her head. "All right? All he cares about is that damned school—The Institute has always come  _first,_  before us, before anything else. Are you really going to tell me that's how you want to be? Only caring about a school, about who goes there, about what people think about it? You've seen how he treats us when it comes down to a choice between us and the school—he'll pick the school any day, Arthur. You can't tell me that you—"

  
"No." Arthur told her, looking back up to catch her angry eyes. "No, all right? I  _don't_. I don't want to be like him at all—I don't want to have to attend crap parties like that for the rest of my life, celebrating things and not inviting the people it concerns, not talking about what we're celebrating, eating food that hardly has a taste, talking to people like I'm better than them if they don't have as nice credentials—I don't fucking want that, Morg, but... what else can I  _do?_ "

  
Morgana sighed and shook her head, fell back into her chair as Arthur looked to her pleadingly, actually  _wanting_  her advice on this. Because now that he had said what he needed to do, now that other people knew, now that a house that didn't belong to the Pendragons had touched the words, felt them in the air that it held... He realized he didn't want to do this. He didn't  _want_  to use Emrys like that, didn't  _want_  to use him to please his father like that.

  
Emrys— _Merlin;_  why did he keep calling him  _Emrys?—_ genuinely seemed like the good person Morgana promised he would be, and, now that he actually  _met_   _him,_  Arthur would admit that he was even more attractive than the poster made him out to be, than he remembered him to be from his last concert, his eyes bluer up close, his cheekbones sharper—how the hell could he  _trick_  and  _use_  a person he was so fucking attracted to?

  
"You can try to be his  _friend._  Just because he's a good person; just because he's  _Merlin._ " Elyan suggested in the heavy, thoughtful silence that followed Arthur's admission and question.

  
"Except for the fact that he hates me now."

  
"He doesn't  _hate you_ , Arthur." Morgana rolled her eyes, and, though he could still tell she was thoroughly pissed off at him, there was something softer in her voice when she assured him of that. "He was just mad—he'll get over it."

  
"I wouldn't. Not a first meeting like  _that._ "

  
"Well, he's not like you, now is he?" Mithian asked, and,  _really,_  truer words had never been spoken.

  
*

* * *

 


	7. Earning His Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Pendragon's right—and I promise you, I will be saying _that_ as little as possible—"

* * *

 

*

  
"Try to be his friend," Elyan had said.

  
"He doesn't hate you," Morgana had said.

  
"He's not like you," Mithian had said.

  
Well damn them  _all_  and their stupid, pleasant little  _lies._

  
Honestly, after leaving Emrys' house, Morgana dragging him along so he didn't stop and say anything  _stupid_  to Emrys as he left, Arthur had tried to come up with a way to do it—become his friend and all that. He decided he might come by the next day and say, "Sorry I was such an asshole—do you like football?" Or just come by with food—because apparently that was all it took to get on his good side, if Morgana was to be believed—and hope all was forgiven, but then he slept on it and he realized…

  
He didn't like apologizing. Even if he  _was_  wrong. Even if it  _was_  his fault, he did not like apologizing. To anyone. And anyway, he didn't see what he had to apologize  _for_ , as Emrys had been just as in Arthur's face as Arthur had been in his.  _He_  should have had to apologize as well. Which he wouldn't, probably, because Arthur was beginning to believe that he had more in common with Arthur than Mithian thought he did.

  
When he thought back on the events of the previous day, he realized he really  _did_  have enough in common with Emrys that it wasn't surprising he was willing to have such a shouting match with Arthur just hours after meeting him. He wasn't afraid to tease Morgana, but at the same time knew better than to piss her off, knew he should just do as he was told when it came to her. He got on well with Leon, Arthur's best friend, he could take Gwaine's shit and give it back to him, all banter and playful sarcasm, he got on with Elyan, with Mithian, could clearly tell there was something between Leon and Mithian—even if they wouldn't fucking admit it yet, there was  _something_  there—he  _cared_  about his friends, and just…

  
Yeah. Arthur could see himself getting on with Emrys. And it wasn't just because he still had a bit of a crush on him—that would pass, it  _always_  passed—it was because, once Arthur looked past the yelling and the anger and the tiny bit of hatred that might have been there, he could genuinely see Emrys as the good person Morgana said he was, as the kind young man the tabloids and interviews used to always make him out to be.

_  
Really._

  
And the next day, he was just about ready to march back over to his house, let himself in, plop down on the couch and act as though nothing had happened. Because if Emrys really  _was_  anything like Arthur, that was just how it would be. They would move past the fight and, even when they got into it  _again and again and again_ , they would still get on as though they hadn't. That was just how things would be—Arthur was sure.

  
Really, that had been his plan. And it was a good one, too, if he did say so himself.

  
Just as he was getting out of the shower that morning, however, still ruffling his hair with a towel, his phone beeped with a message and he picked it up curiously, wondering what Leon or Gwaine or Percy or  _whoever_  might want at only ten in the morning.

 _  
[Text]: From: Unknown: [_ Pendragon it's Emrys _]_

  
Well. Wasn't  _that_  an interesting development. Arthur hadn't even given him his phone number the previous day, as Morgana had been too busy yanking him down the street to let him—not that Emrys would have taken it from him anyway, as he had still seemed pretty pissed off at that point, his eyes hardening when they fell on Arthur, though he had been in the middle of laughing at something or another Gwaine was saying.

  
Still, he quickly finished drying off, and shrugged into jeans and the closest shirt he could grab before he shot off a reply.

 _  
[Text]: To: Emrys: [_ How the hell did you get my number? _]_

 _  
[Text]: From: Emrys: [_ Morgana _]_

 _  
[Text]: To: Emrys: [_ Of course. What do you want? _]_

 _  
[Text]: From: Emrys: [_ Furniture just got delivered, get your self-entitled ass over here and help move it _]_

 _  
[Text]: To: Emrys: [_ And why the hell would I do that? _]_

 _  
[Text]: From: Emrys: [_ What else do you have to do? _]_

 _  
[Text]: To: Emrys: [_ Fine. Can I eat first? _]_

 _  
[Text]: From: Emrys: [_ Nope. Ass. Over here. Now. _]_

  
Arthur rolled his eyes and shoved his phone into his pocket after reading the last text. At least, he told himself as he trailed out of his bathroom, he was right about one thing: Merlin Emrys might have been more like him than Mithian and the others thought he was.

  
*

 _  
"Why_  do we have to wait for this Arthur bloke, exactly?" Will asked, leaning against the table that was currently sitting in Merlin's driveway, cluttering it up with everything he had bought at that damned shop the day before. The delivery men had asked if Merlin wanted them to take it inside the house for him, but he had instructed them to just leave it in the driveway, he could have it moved himself soon enough. Which meant, after they left, a plethora of calls and texts full of bribes and threats and fake promises made from the comfort of Gwaine's new chair in his driveway.

  
Everyone had arrived, however, within the hour, leaving him with Gwaine, Percival, Leon, Elyan, Will, Gwen, and Morgana mulling about, with Gwaine insisting Merlin get out of his chair the second he had arrived.

  
And Merlin was ready to get started with everything—really, he was—but then Morgana had opened her mouth with her, "Well what about Arthur? Aren't you going to make  _him_  help?" Which had led to, "But that would mean I have to see him again. And he's a prat." Which led to a whole  _thing_  with her and the others and eventually to Morgana rattling off Arthur's number for him and making him send him a text to tell him to get his ass over there to help them with the furniture. Because if he was going to hang out there, too, he was damn sure going to help with this sort of thing.

  
Merlin wasn't entirely sure when he had agreed to let Pendragon come over often enough to call it "hanging out" but he did it anyway, if only to keep the others off his back about the unfairness of Arthur not having to help as well.

  
"Because he has to earn his keep around here, too." Percival said in reply.

  
"So then why am  _I_  here?" Will asked. "I earn _my_ keep in rides around the city and not selling all his dirty little secrets to the press." He nodded in Merlin's direction, an amused sort of grin on his face as Merlin rolled his eyes at him.

  
"Would you be willing to sell some of those dirty little secrets to  _me?_ " Gwaine asked in amusement.

  
"Not if he knows what's good for him."

  
"Ah, don't worry, Gwaine," Will said, winking at him. "You get him drunk enough, he'll spill them all himself; he can't hold his liquor worth a damn."

  
"William…"

  
"Well, it's  _true_. First time he ever had a bit to drink, right, we're at his place, it's his birthday, and, I swear to God, at the end of the night he—"

  
"Oh, look, it's Pendragon. Better shut up now." Merlin said, glaring at Will as he nodded up the street to Arthur, who looked inconvenienced, but not much else, as he walked the short distance down the street towards them.

  
"Are you still mad at him about yesterday, Mer?" Leon asked suddenly, as though the thought had just occurred to him.

  
"No. I don't think so." Merlin shrugged. "Morgana made the persuasive argument that maybe we just got off on the wrong foot—I don't really believe that, of course, but... I just can't find it in me to stay mad at him. He's an idiot, sure, but he's not worth holding a grudge over or anything."

  
Leon nodded, the conversation dropped as Arthur came to the driveway at last, standing, frozen for half a moment, to take in the sight before him.

  
He pursed his lips, eyebrow quirked, stood among the silence before finally asking, "If you already have everyone else over here, why the hell did you need  _me?"_

  
Merlin rolled his eyes and shook his head at him. "You've got to earn your keep  _somehow."_  He said, giving Percival a nod of recognition for the reply.

  
"Thought I'd do that by making you yell at me all the time, get the blood pumping and all that." He answered cheekily.

  
Merlin rolled his eyes, trying not to grin at him because damn, okay, that was a good fucking answer.

  
"Shut up." He said simply.

  
Arthur smirked at him and walked over to where the others all were, nodding his hellos to his friends before introducing himself to Will.

  
"Arthur Pendragon." He said simply, shaking Will's out-stretched hand as he looked him over for a moment.

  
"So  _you're_  the bastard Merlin hates." Will nodded slowly. "Right good job pissing him off like that—trust me when I say it takes  _a lot_  to get under his skin. You should feel so honored."

  
Arthur grinned almost triumphantly at the comment before taking his hand back and turning to Merlin, quirked an eyebrow at him, and asked, innocently enough, "Where do we start, then?"

  
*

  
It took the better part of the morning, but, finally, they got all the furniture inside Merlin's house. They moved Gwaine's chair and a few other necessary pieces of furniture into the room in the back Merlin directed them all to—"It's the  _clubhouse_ , Merlin," Gwaine had insisted, "Not the back room." "Fine, clubhouse, whatever." He had said in reply, grinning good-naturedly anyway—and moved things around, the boys moving this here and that there as the girls stood by and directed them around, because really, now that Morgana thought about it, Gwaine's chair would look better on that side of the room and Morgana's would look better just against  _that_  wall. And Gwen pointed out that maybe this table would be better placed just by the couch instead of that recliner—or no, the square one was fine in the corner, but perhaps it needed a few kitchen chairs around it…

  
By the time they finished, the room looked… full. There was still plenty of room for something that Merlin still couldn't quite place, but, for now, it would do. They would figure out what to do with the rest of the room later on; for now, they were all tired, hot, sweaty, and rather hungry, so it would have to do for today.

  
"Jesus." Arthur hissed, yanking his sweat-soaked shirt over his head and tossing it onto the back of one of the chairs. "Why the hell isn't your air on, Emrys? It's fucking  _hot."_

  
"It's on in the rest of the house." Merlin replied, fanning himself with his hand before deciding  _fuck it_ , and taking his shirt off as well. The other boys had long ago abandoned their own shirts and left them strewn about the house on furniture, on the floor, tables, Gwaine had left his on the front porch, if Merlin recalled correctly. "But I had to air this room out so the window's open, in case you couldn't tell." He said, nodding to the window behind the couch.

  
"Can I close it now? Seems aired out enough." Leon said, wrinkling his nose as he wiped at his brow.

  
"Go ahead."

  
"And I  _just_  took a shower, too." Arthur sighed, throwing himself down on the couch.

  
Merlin rolled his eyes, wiped the sweat from his forehead as he sat down on a chair next to the couch, looking Arthur over with something like discontempt and wonder as he realized that he had been right in his assumption the day before: Arthur was in  _good shape_  and could probably kick his ass if he needed to. How the hell a musician looked so good without his shirt on, Merlin didn't know, but he suspected Gwaine and Percival could probably fill him in on that secret—because if Arthur was in good shape, Gwaine was built, and Percy was  _cut._

  
Somehow, however, Arthur still looked better without his shirt on than they did. Not that he noticed or anything.

  
"So take another." Elyan suggested.

  
"That would require going back to  _my_  house, and right now…" he waved his hand as he trailed off.

  
"That would be too much effort for his highness to exert?" Merlin finished for him.

  
"Emrys, I am  _way_  too exhausted to get into it with you right now. Rain check?"

  
"Jesus, just use my shower then, you big baby." Merlin told him, shaking his head as the others all collapsed into the various chairs around the room, all just as exhausted and sweaty as he was. "The rest of you, too, feel free to use my showers. There are two upstairs and I think one or two down here. There are extra towels in the linen closets."

  
"Sounds good—who wants to go first?" Leon asked, looking around at the others.

  
"All of you," Morgana said, wrinkling her nose as her and Gwen entered the room with armfuls of cold bottles of water, making faces as they passed them around to the boys. "You all  _stink."_

  
"Well that's what happens when you work hard and get sweaty,  _Morgana."_ Arthur rolled his eyes, taking a bottle from her and running it over his forehead for a moment before cracking it open and taking a long sip. "Not that  _you_  would know anything about something like  _that."_  He finished as he lowered the bottle from his mouth.

  
Merlin smiled at Gwen as she handed him a bottle and Morgana said something smart back to Arthur that he didn't quite catch. "Thank you, Gwen." He said, tipping the bottle back, the cool liquid a godsend in the sweltering heat of the room, all the boys giving off their body heat, trying to cool themselves down and not succeeding in the least.

  
"Somebody just  _go_  already." Will whined.

  
"Fine, you go use the one up in the bathroom by my room—you remember where it is, don't you?"

  
"If I don't," He said, swinging off the chair he was sitting on. "I'll know it by all the sheet music, won't I?"

  
"I've not even got all of it up yet." Merlin nodded in admission. "Don't get any of it wet; I know you like to shake the water out of your hair like a dog, so not by the music, yeah?"

  
"Yeah, yeah. I'd hate for you to have a meltdown or something."

  
"I would not—"

  
"Your mum once scribbled on the back of a piece you were composing and you—"

  
"Just  _go_ , William." He cut in pointedly, and really, Will was having much too much fun doing that, dangling his secrets and embarrassing stories out in front of the others like that. He didn't doubt that they would find out about most of them in due time, but, he would have liked to give them enough time to get to know him better before telling them all his embarrassing stories like that.

  
"Going." He smirked cheekily, walking through the door.

  
"Jerk." Merlin called after him.

  
"Washed up has-been." Will yelled back.

  
Merlin snorted and shook his head, taking another sip of his water before turning to the rest of the room. "I think there's another shower just around the corner and one upstairs somewhere, if a couple of you wanna go."

  
"Right, I'll go look for the one upstairs. Towels are in the linen closet, you said?" Percival asked, standing up.

  
"Yeah."

  
"I'll look for the one down here, then." Elyan said, leaving the room behind Percival and going to opposite direction. With those two gone from the room, Gwen and Morgana fell into their empty seats gracefully. They looked around the room at the boys, at their sweaty, exhausted faces, and shook their heads in laughter at the sight of them.

  
Arthur glared at his sister but said nothing. Instead, he took a long sip of his water, finishing it off, and threw the empty bottle in Merlin's direction, not quite hitting him.

  
"Prat." Merlin sighed, rolling his eyes.

  
"Idiot."

  
"Both of you are children." Morgana sighed, shaking her head in disappointment. But Merlin was too tired, too  _hot,_  to be bothered feeling sorry or anything of the sort in the moment.

  
"So, Merlin, you and Will are pretty close then?" Gwen asked, trying to change the subject.

  
"Mm-hm." He nodded absent-mindedly. "We've been best friends since we were five or six, I think, grew up together; we're practically brothers."

  
"Isn't he the whole reason you're going to The Institute?" Gwaine asked.

  
"Yeah, he got accepted and then my parents decided I needed to go as well."

  
"Why's that?" Leon asked.

  
"I think it's because they got tired of me just sort of slinking about, moping about my piano, playing music on instruments I don't love quite as much that never sound good enough anyway. I mean, they put up with it for over two years, but they were bound to get fed up eventually." He shrugged, taking a long, thoughtful drink of his water.

  
He was too preoccupied to worry about  _going there_ , to worry about having to change the subject or dance around certain questions. For the first time in a while now, he genuinely didn't mind talking about this, didn't mind the questions he might be faced with. And he didn't know if he was just too tired to be bothered to be bothered by it or if it was something else entirely.

  
"I still don't understand why you quit the piano at all. I mean, you were so successful…" Gwen said, giving him a warm look that was completely  _Gwen_ and made him not-mind even more about having this conversation. She just had that sort of effect on people, he supposed.

  
"Yeah, I was, but…" Merlin sighed and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

  
"But?" Morgana prompted.

  
" _But_ , it… I don't know, Morg, I just… I wasn't enjoying myself anymore. Music wasn't… it's supposed to be enjoyable, but… Towards the end there, there was so much pressure on me and everyone expected so much of me… I just felt like I couldn't  _breathe_  anymore. Sitting at that piano—" He waved a hand towards the door, towards the direction he knew it to be at. "—It was  _hell._  I used to love it, I could spend hours, days even, just…  _playing,_ composing, but,  _then,_  it was like… the closest to hell I've ever been, just…" he shook his head again, washed the bitter taste in his mouth down with another sip of his water.

  
The room fell silent, thoughtful,  _heavy,_  as Merlin bit his lip, chewing over his half-formed explanation of things. That was the first time he'd ever tried explaining to anyone why he had retired. He hadn't even told his parents or  _Will_  his true reason for wanting to retire…

  
"You couldn't handle the pressure, is what I'm hearing?" Arthur asked, his tone light and almost teasing.

  
Merlin rolled his eyes, smiling despite himself. Maybe he  _had_  gotten off on the wrong foot with Arthur after all…

  
"More like the pressure was going to kill me if I didn't get out. I can't tell you how many days I woke up wondering if it was going to be the last day of my life."

  
"Oh stop being so melodramatic, Emrys. How does sitting at a  _piano_  kill someone—"

  
"It's not the piano that would have done it, Arthur." Merlin told him, voice sharp and soft with the meaning behind his words.

  
For once in the short amount of time that Merlin had known him, Arthur closed his mouth, shocked into silence with the admission.

  
"Why do you still have it?" Gwen asked in a whisper after a moment, her face drawn up into concern and worry.

  
"Can't seem to let it go." Merlin shrugged. "I grew up in front of it, spent most of my life sitting on that bench… Not the sort of thing you can just let go of."

  
"Do you ever miss playing?" Leon asked.

  
"Don't tell Will I said this—because he would never let me forget I admitted to this when I've been denying it for so long—but… yeah. I do. All the time. I compose a new piece and I wonder what it would sound like on the piano, I pick up an instrument and I remember what it was like to sit in front of it, fingers poised over the keys. I listen to something and I can't help but wonder if I'd be able to play it any better. It's... still in everything that I do, everywhere I look, everything I am."

  
"Why don't you just  _play_ , then?" Arthur wondered, almost sounding exasperated with the question.

  
"Weren't you listening?" Merlin asked, drawing his eyebrows together. "I was suicidal the last time I sat down to play; I can hardly look at the damn thing sometimes, can you imagine what would happen if I  _actually_  sat down to play it again? I might lose what little sanity I have left."

  
" _Now_  you're being melodramatic." Arthur rolled his eyes.

  
"Just a little."

  
Arthur smiled softly and shook his head, the only one in the room, really, no longer left speechless because of everything Merlin had said so far.

  
"All right, Merls," Will began, materializing in the doorway as he tugged a shirt over his head and into place. "Didn't get water all over your music, but I  _did_  borrow a shirt."

  
"Fine." Merlin shrugged, switching topics easily, hoping the others would understand, without needing to be told, that he couldn't discuss this in front of Will. Not like he had been, not like that. Will was his best friend, but... Really, he didn't want to worry him with talk like that. "Actually, that one might be yours—I think you left it over at my parents' place a while ago and I never gave it back."

  
"I  _thought_  it looked familiar."

  
"Who's next, then?" Merlin asked, looking around at Leon, Arthur, and Gwaine.

  
"I am." Arthur said, standing up.

  
"Right, towels are up there somewhere, and I'd tell you you could borrow a shirt, but I don't know if they'd fit you." Merlin mused, making a faux thoughtful sort of face.

  
"I don't know, Merls, I think Arthur would look good in a tight little shirt of yours." Gwaine grinned.

  
"Shut up, Gwaine." Merlin and Arthur both rolled their eyes at him as Arthur crossed the room. He left without another word, and Merlin's eyes lingered on him for a moment before he looked to where Will was plopping himself down on the couch where Arthur had just been. Suddenly, he was restless and exhausted in a way he couldn't quite describe.

  
He was still lingering on the edges of this feeling, trying to decide how he might go about describing it if prompted, when Morgana decided to change the subject, distracting him thoroughly enough with the conversation that would roll out of her innocent enough question.

  
"What should we do for lunch today?"

  
*

  
"Wait a second, so you and Mithian aren't  _actually_  dating?" Emrys asked, giving Leon an incredulous sort of  _look_  over the meal they were eating back in their club house.

  
"No!" Leon gasped out, blushing with the accusation in his tone.

  
Arthur laughed at his friend's expense, almost choking on his food as he did so.

  
After a lengthy conversation that had apparently lasted the whole time Arthur was taking his shower, Morgana had insisted that, instead of ordering in or going out for food, she make them something—"Merlin's probably going to be living off little more than take-away once school starts, so we should get some  _real_  food into him while we can." She said as she sauntered away to the kitchen to whip them up something while the rest of the boys finished up their showers and someone threw all their shirts into the wash. Arthur, of course, knew her true reasoning for wanting to cook for them was just to show off her amazing cooking skills that she  _always_ insisted were sub-par at best, just to get compliments out of people not used to her cooking—which she had.

  
And, of course, it was amazing. Which Emrys had told her, buying into her modesty act and  _completely_  missing the glint of smugness that flashed in her eyes as she looked away from the compliment. Well, he would learn soon enough, Arthur supposed.

  
Somehow, over the course of everything else they'd been discussing that afternoon, the subject of Mithian and Leon's non-existent relationship had come up. And Arthur felt  _tremendous_  amusement over such a subject being broached—naturally—enjoyed the way his best friend blushed and stuttered at Emrys' innocent enough questions. Honestly, they were  _so_  obvious it was disgusting sometimes, and the fact that Emrys could pick up on it after only one afternoon with them, well...

  
"Oh , leave the poor boy alone, Arthur; you're not one to talk about being  _obvious."_ Morgana told him with a smile that might have made him blush if anyone in the room had had any idea what she was referring to. Instead, he merely glared at her and turned his attention back to Leon.

  
"You should just tell her, L." He said.

  
"Pendragon's right—and I promise you, I will be saying  _that_  as little as possible—she's... clearly into you, too. That's why I thought you two were already together." Emrys said.

  
"I don't know—I think she could do so much bette—"

  
"Oh don't start with  _that_  bullshit!" Will interrupted, rolling his eyes as he stuffed a bit of something or another into his mouth.

  
"Really, though, Leon,  _everyone_ uses that excuse when they—"

  
"When they're being chicken shit." Gwaine finished for Elyan.

  
"Well what would you have me  _do?"_ Leon asked, exasperated by the situation at hand.

  
And Arthur couldn't say he blamed him, if it had been  _him_  suffering through everyone in the room trying to goad him into professing his feelings for someone—say, Emrys, for example—he might have just thrown his hands up in anger and stormed out of the room.

  
But Leon, to his credit, had done nothing of the sort and was taking the situation far better than Arthur would have. "Walk up to her and say, "Hey, Mithain, I think I'm in love with you. Do you want to go to the cinema with me this weekend?""

  
"Maybe not those words  _exactly."_ Percival grinned.

  
"But that's  _exactly_  what you should do!" Gwen corrected, insistent until Emrys' eyes trailed over to her and then she blushed, ducked her head shyly. Yeah, okay, Arthur got what Morgana had said before: Gwen was  _totally_  besotted with the damn prodigy. God, would he be in competition with her, he wondered, for Emrys'—Nope. Not going down that road. He was  _not_  going to go down that God damned road. And anyway, Emrys was straight, wasn't he?

  
"Gwen's right, Leon." Morgana said, nudging Gwen's elbow with her own. "Girls love a man who takes charge, don't we, Gweny?" She asked, cutting her eyes at Arthur and then Emrys. Arthur gave her a curious look, wondering what the hell she was  _getting at_ for a moment before Gwen nodded enthusiastically.

  
"Of course."

  
"Well that's all fine and good," Leon said. "But this is  _Mithian_  we're talking about here. I can't just... can't just walk up to her and say something like that. It would be  _mortifying_. Because what if you're  _wrong_  and she doesn't feel that way about me? Then what do I do?"

  
"Tell her you understand and would still like to be friends." Will suggested. "Also works for break-ups, eh, Mer?" He raised his eyebrows, grinning at his supposed best friend.

  
"Please shut up, Will." Emrys said, a warning sort of look on his face as he glared at his friend, looking almost as pissed off as he had just the day before when Arthur had been yelling at him.

  
"They're bound to find out about her anyway."

  
"That doesn't mean you have to take it upon yourself—"

  
"So you tell them then."

 _  
"I_  didn't—"

  
"What was her name?" Gwaine asked, interrupting the back and forth that Arthur knew, from experience with Leon, could go on forever.

  
Emrys sighed and sank down into the couch, biting his lip for a moment before answering. "Freya." He said, the name seeming to roll off his tongue delicately, as though he was guarding whatever secrets were behind the name itself. And Arthur—oh, Arthur couldn't help but feel a sharp of jealousy at the way he said her name, a twist of something bittersweet passing over Emrys' face when he did so.

  
"Isn't the daughter of the guy who runs the Avalon Theatre named Freya?" Percival asked when no one would say anything else.

  
"Oh do you know her?" Will asked.

  
"That's her?" Elyan asked.

  
"Yeah. That's her." Emrys nodded, something far-off on his face.

  
"Oh she's so pretty," Gwen said, something painful on her face that Arthur could almost admit he was feeling as well. "Why did you break up?"

 _  
"She_  broke up with  _me."_

  
"Why would she do something like that?" Morgana asked, almost offended at the thought itself. Arthur, however, was a bit too preoccupied to be bothered working out  _why_.

  
Freya, Freya, Freya—he had been to Avalon enough over the years to call it something like a third home to him, surely he had seen her around? Was she the blonde one or the one with the dark hair? Was she the soft-spoken one or the one that liked to let loose? The man only had one daughter, Arthur had just never bothered to learn who she was. Now, though, well, he almost wished that he  _had,_  just so he could be sure of Emrys' type.

  
"Said I loved my music more than I loved her, which," Emrys shrugged and let out another sigh. "Anyone else in the world might have been able to say that but... not her, you know? Will could have said that, my parents, even, but... Not her. Anyway, Leon." He said, trying, as unsubtle as possible, to change the subject. "Back to you and Mithian, yeah?"

  
God, there was so much  _more_  to Emrys, wasn't there? So much more than the tabloids, than Arthur's father, than  _people,_  gave him credit for. Arthur, even, had never considered the fact that he had ever dated someone, let alone had his heart broken. He had never considered the fact that his music had pushed him so far, had never consider that it could have such a negative effect on him. Music was such an amazing thing—did it  _really_  have the ability to make a man consider taking his own life? Music was healing, it was a lifestyle, it was positive, wasn't it?

  
When Arthur reflected on it for a moment longer, however, when he thought of his own music, his life, his father, always being pushed to be his absolute best every time he played...

  
He understood it. He understood where Emrys was coming from. He thought he had understood his motives for retiring before he had even  _met_  Emrys, but now,  _now_ , he really understood it.

  
If anything came of that day, other than their clubhouse being furnished and Arthur getting an eye full of Emrys's sheet-music plastered to his walls and what he looked like shirtless—not bad, actually; it would certainly fuel a few of his fantasies, should he allow himself to indulge—it was Arthur understanding him just a little bit better.

  
"... You can write her a song or something." Emrys was suggesting when Arthur tuned him back in.

  
"Seriously?" Leon asked, his tone incredulous.

  
"You  _are_  a musician." Percival grinned.

  
"Do you know what he plays, Merlin?" Elyan asked, laughing with the question.

  
"Obviously  _not_ or he would never suggest such a thing." Arthur added.

  
"So what's he play?" Will asked.

  
"Trumpet."

  
Will and Emrys laughed, shaking their heads with uncontrollable grins on their faces. "Yeah, probably not the best idea in the world then, eh, Will?" Emrys nudged his friend, still grinning.

  
"Shut up,  _Merlin_."

  
"When we were, like, fourteen," Emrys began, turning to the others despite his best friend's objections. "Will was  _completely_  besotted with this girl—what was her name again, Tiffany or something?—anyway, what girl doesn't like music, right? So he comes up with the  _brilliant_  idea of writing a piece of music for her—Tiffany, by the way, was not into any music other than Taylor Swift—and when he played it for her—Jesus, Will, it's still hilarious—she  _completely_  flipped on him, called him a band geek and all sorts of other stuff and... and just stormed off in a huff. In front of all their friends, and most of the kids from their grade."

  
"God, it was so humiliating!" Will shook his head, cheeks painted with the memory.

  
"So he came over later that day and told me what happened," Emrys said, still telling the story. "And I asked him to play for me what he'd played for her, and he did, and it just...  _Jesus..."_  Emrys shook his head again, dissolving into a mad fit of laughter as Will glared in his direction. "It... was...  _so..._ god damn  _angry!_ It sounded... sounded like you were...  _pissed_   _off_  at her or something, not like you were in love."

  
"Hey, I  _tried!"_

  
"I didn't blame her... for storming off... after I heard it..." Emrys ducked his head, still laughing.

  
Arthur couldn't help but grin himself, then. He looked around at everyone else in the room, and they all seemed infected by his good mood, by his laughter, grinning or chuckling outside the realm of reason themselves.

  
"And  _that,"_ Will said as Emrys' laughter finally began to die down. "Is why I switched to the trombone."

  
Emrys bit his lip, seemed to be trying to bite down another wave of laughter as he turned to Leon. "So maybe you  _don't_  try writing music for her."

  
"It's easy for  _you_  to laugh about it, Mer," Will added. "Composing music comes as easy as breathing to you—some of us have to work at it, you know."

  
"Composing music  _is_  as easy as breathing for me—Oh, that reminds me," Emrys nodded, composing himself at last. "I've been working on this piece I wanted your thoughts on."

  
"I don't know why you bother." Will said in reply, wiping his hands off on a napkin. "Nothing ever sounds good enough to you anyway."

  
"To  _me._  That's why I play it for  _you. You_  won't lie to me or try to bullshit me."

  
"Right, like your parents, you mean."

  
"Yeah. I love them, but, sometimes it feels like they don't take my music as seriously since I retired."

  
"To be  _fair_ , do  _you_  even take your music seriously sometimes?"

  
"No. I guess I don't. Not anymore."

  
Will nodded, his face suddenly pensive and thoughtful before he quirked an eyebrow at his friend. "Are you going to get it, then?" He nodded towards the door.

  
" _Now?_ " Emrys asked, his turn to be incredulous.

  
"You're going to play for us?" Morgana asked, a twinkle in her eyes as she leaned forward ever so slightly. Everyone in the room lit up at the prospect, and Arthur wasn't sure how the hell they had gone from trying to convince Leon to tell Mithian how he felt about her to Emrys playing music for them, but he was just as excited as the others were at the prospect. He hadn't seen Emrys play in so many years, and it had only been the  _one time_ —which wasn't even fair or anything—so, if Emrys would play for him, for them, right then and there...

  
He would probably enjoy that far too fucking much.

  
"I don't—"

  
"Come on, Merls." Gwaine goaded, giving him a cheeky grin. "We spent the entire morning helping you out—it's the least you can in return."

  
After a few short moments of the others—minus Arthur, of course, because he wasn't about to let Emrys know just how badly he craved to hear him play again—talking him into it, he left the room with a roll of his eyes to go fetch his violin. " _And_  the sheet music! So we know you're not just improvising again!" Will called after him.

  
"Shut up!" Emrys yelled back.

  
" _Again?"_ Elyan asked before the rest of them could.

  
"Yeah,  _again."_ Will nodded, took a sip of his tea before answering the question that was left hanging in the air. "I don't know if any of you lot saw the last concert he played—"

  
"Arthur and Morgana did." Gwen said, looking between the brother and sister. "Uther dragged them along to it to see his perspective student play."

  
"Really?"

  
"Yes, it was wonderful, wasn't it, Arthur?" Morgana asked coyly, giving him a Cheshire grin.

  
Arthur glared at her, his cheeks heating up. She was just determined to embarrass him, wasn't she? Determined to make every single moment spent in the Emrys household difficult for him. It didn't occur to him until much,  _much_  later that she was simply doing this to teach him a lesson of some sort, to get back at him for planning to use her friend like that.

  
"Right, anyway," Will said, giving Arthur a funny sort of look before continuing. "He completely messed up on it. Flubbed the whole damn thing. Well, the last half of it, anyway."

  
"What... do you mean?" Arthur asked slowly. "I was there, he was  _great."_  He insisted, feeling a deep need to defend Emrys for some ungodly reason or another that he didn't  _understand._

  
"I forgot the notes, half-way through." Emrys supplied from the doorway, a sour sort of look on his face as he stood there, clutching his violin, bow, and a few pieces of sheet music. After a beat, he added, "I didn't know you were such a  _fan,_  Pendragon." He grinned, as he stalked back into the room. He let the sheet music fall to the table they were all moreorless gathered around and spread it out, gave it a quick look-over before sliding it over to Will to look at.

  
"I wasn't," Arthur said, much too quickly. "My father made us go. Couldn't really get out of it."

  
"You didn't really  _try."_ Morgana grinned.

  
"So if you couldn't remember the notes..." Leon trailed off as Emrys went about preparing to play.

  
"I improvised. Obviously. Just made it up as I went along. The fact that everybody loved it and was so...  _moved_  by it..." He shrugged.

  
"It's a testament you your talents, obviously." Percival said with a wink.

  
"Yeah, something like that." Emrys grinned wryly, fidgeting with his bow for a moment.

  
"You used to play sold-out concerts, Mer," Will said gently, sensing his friend's hesitance a moment before Arthur did. "A room full of kids is  _nothing."_

  
Emrys nodded at him and then, before he could change his mind, before anyone else could say anything, he began to play, his fingers changing through the notes with ease, eyes slipping closed a fraction, his whole body seeming to  _relax_  as he got into the music, a sort of peacefulness seeming to take over as he eased into it. And the music he played then... it was so breath-takingly  _beautiful_  that Arthur forgot where he  _was_  for a moment.

  
His eyes were as transfixed on Emrys' face, his hands, his  _being_ , as his ears were on the music, uplifting him with the sound, striking everyone into a mesmerizing silence that lasted well after he played the last note. And, Arthur was sure then, that perhaps this was a crush that wasn't going to pass after all.

  
*

* * *

 


End file.
